


happens all the time

by Liu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Tumblr fics, i needed a place to dump all of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 45,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4611813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Random ColdFlash ficlets, I have no idea how many there will be (probably many).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. another dimension [coldflash, rathawells, atomvibe]

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Каждый божий день](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11548281) by [PrettyPenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyPenny/pseuds/PrettyPenny)



> a drabble written for a friend, because she wanted some atomvibe and i couldn't make it happen without coldflash.

Barry didn’t expect the world to look so normal on the other side of the singularity. The streets of Central City looked just like they had one or two days ago, in Barry’s time, before this whole mess started, the sun was up in the sky (without any cataclysmic clouds around it), people were buying bad hotdogs, tapping away at their phones or arguing with each other… it was all eerily normal for Barry who’d just been sucked into some time/space thingy because his world was collapsing around him. All the normalcy was why Barry doubted he’d gone very far back in time. Or maybe he’d gone a few days forward, just into a timeline without Wells’ crazy ideas of timetravel…?

Or should he say ‘Thawne’s ideas’, considering what they’d learned about Wells’ identity.

Barry sighed and rubbed at his eyes. The steely monument of STARlabs was looming over him as if it wanted to ask what he’d done, why had he taken that trip back to his mom’s death when in the end, he didn’t change anything… except really fucking up HIS time.

He knew what 'Wells’ (Barry couldn’t think of him as anything else, even if it was an incorrect name) said about telling people he was travelling in time, but Barry didn’t have much of an option. He was smart, but he was still just a forensic scientist, good at reading blood spatter and centrifuged sediments, but what they needed right now was someone with Cisco’s and Caitlyn’s brainpower.

A sense of dread churning in his stomach, Barry took a deep breath and sped through the gates of STARlabs, aiming for the control room. If Cisco and Caitlyn were here at all, there was no other place that was more likely for them.

What Barry had NOT expected was to see Doctor Wells, alive and well and not visibly evil, sitting behind a desk, doing what seemed like some calculations from where Barry was standing. On instinct, heart beating fast, Barry stepped back into a shadowed corner so Wells wouldn’t see him. For a split second, Barry thought that maybe he’d gone back a few weeks only and their problems could be solved if he was fast enough, if he killed the Reverse Flash… but he knew he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t a killer, even if it would make his life easier, maybe.

Just then, Barry realized that Wells wasn’t sitting in his wheelchair. Instead, he was twitching minutely, making the regular office chair spin back and forth a few inches, until a steadying hand came from the back, halting the movement.

“You know I hate when you do that,” Hartley Rathaway snorted, pleasant as usual, and Barry raised an eyebrow. What was he doing here?! Wasn’t he supposed to be locked up, or… what?

Hartley set a mug of something steaming on Wells’ table, still scowling.

“And I’m not your maid, you do realize that, don’t you.”

Wells just laughed quietly - Barry wondered if it wouldn’t have helped Hartley if Wells had not treated him like a son but like an employee - and then his arm rose from the table and snaked around Hartley’s waist.

Barry’s eyes widened. But he was obviously the only surprised one because Hartley just rolled his eyes and let Wells pull him down to his lap.

“Not your lapdog either,” he huffed, and Wells leaned forward: Barry couldn’t see his face or hear his words, because it seemed he was whispering into Hartley’s ear, but the young genius went red around his frown.

“That’s not the point!” he yelped, pushing at Wells’ chest, but he relaxed when Wells’ other hand crept up to tangle in Hartley’s carefully coiffed hair and- wow. Okay. Barry knew that Hartley was gay, but Wells had always seemed… very straight. Obviously he wasn’t, because that was some vigorous kissing going on if Hartley’s not-so-quiet sighs and groans were any indication.

Barry turned away in embarrassment, trying to speed away, possibly return at a better time (any time when Hartley wouldn’t be here sucking face with the guy who killed Barry’s mom): but his escape was prevented by a wall of someone’s body which Barry slammed into, making the poor guy stagger backwards.

“Oof… hey, hey, where’s the fire? Except in Dr. Wells’ pants,” someone giggled, and the pun was so profoundly horrible that Barry couldn’t help but smile, even through a grimace he pulled at the mental images.

“Hey, Ray,” he waved a bit. “I’m just… yeah. Trying to figure out something. Have you seen Cisco? Oh, and what are you doing here?”

Ray shrugged:

“Being a considerate boyfriend, coming to distract my beloved from work,” he winked, and Barry almost sighed in happiness. So Felicity was here too? Okay, that meant MORE brains to figure out how to help Barry’s world. Because with Wells out of a wheelchair and sucking face with Hartley, Barry was almost certain that THIS? Not his world.

“You can come with me,” Ray said and Barry followed him deeper into the labs, not putting two and two together until Ray rapped his knuckles against the doorframe of one of the lab units and Cisco looked up, grinning (without any Felicity in sight).

“Hey, babe,” Cisco said and stretched his arms over his head with a groan. “Please tell me you brought food?”

BABE?! Okay Barry officially didn’t get this world.

“I did,” Ray grinned and held up a plastic bag dangling from his hand. “Chinese. Though I don’t guarantee it survived the impact with the resident speedster,” he added, grinning at Barry.

Oookay so this world had Barry with superspeed too… that was good. It would save a lot of time in terms of explanations… but first.

“Felicity Smoak?” Ray blinked, shrugging a bit. “In Starling, I assume? Last I saw her, at least. Why, did you make plans with her?”

Barry sighed, trying to hold on to the world he knew where Ray was dating Felicity - but apparently this world was different, because the billionaire came up to Cisco’s table, leaning over his chair to plant a quick but firm kiss to his mouth as he set the plastic bag with Chinese on Cisco’s table.

“Do I smell egg rolls?” Cisco sighed happily and sniffed at the air a bit, then grinned up at Ray: “I do smell eggrolls. I love you, man. You’re the most epic boyfriend of all times.”

“I’m your only boyfriend,” Ray pointed out, the same goofy grin on his face that was on Cisco’s, and pulled a chair from another table close to Cisco, casually touching his knee as he looked at Barry:

“Wanna join us? I didn’t know what to get so I brought one of everything,” he shrugged with a chuckle.

“Um,” Barry said, but he had been using a lot of his powers to get through the singularity whirlpool so his stomach WAS starting to churn a bit from hunger, not just nerves. And everything in this world so far was so weirdly… DOMESTIC that he couldn’t maintain proper levels of panic.

And that Chinese DID smell good.

With a sigh, Barry nodded and accepted the carton box of kung pao that Ray handed him.

He kept quiet mostly, still not sure how much about his world he should tell these two - or more like IF he should even say he was from a different dimension or something. Cisco and Ray filled the silence between the sounds of chewing with banter and teasing. They were almost sickeningly, perfectly sweet together, and Barry would be genuinely happy for them if he didn’t still remember Felicity and how she’d looked at Ray, and Ray at her. How did this world not have that?

Though when Barry glanced at Cisco, and Cisco was looking at Ray like he created the sun and the moon and all the stars and laws of physics, yeah… maybe this wasn’t so bad.

But Barry still had to find a way to go back, to save HIS world.

He excused himself after lunch - he ended up finishing most of it - this world’s Ray did NOT know the meaning of the word 'ENOUGH’ either. Barry wondered if he’d booked a whole restaurant just for him and Cisco too. Or if maybe, in this world, Barry really dated Iris, like in Wells’ future newspapers. Maybe they went on a double date like before… except without Eddie, and there would be Cisco instead of Felicity… who knew.

His apartment, thankfully, was mostly like he remembered it. A new mug on the counter - well, not new, it was a bit chipped, but Barry didn’t have one in HIS world’s apartment - a sweatshirt Barry didn’t recognize thrown over the couch, a little bit of a different scent to the place. Maybe he used different cleaning methods here?

Or Iris was really with him, and the subtle differences were her work… Barry’s heart leapt at that and then plummeted. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to go back to his world if this was the one where he finally could have someone just for himself, someone who would cuddle with him and watch old movies and NEW movies and wolf down snacks and complain about stupid things… Barry almost ached from how much he wanted to have that.

He stripped off his Flash uniform and took a quick shower. As he dried off, he grabbed that unfamiliar sweatshirt on a whim, pulling it over his head. It was a little big on him - maybe in this world, his shoulders were finally going wider - but it was comfy and soft, so Barry kept it on as he curled up on his bed and decided to take a rest before trying to solve the world’s problems.

He woke up to a warm body pressed into his back, butterfly kisses fluttering against the back of his neck, warm breath ghosting over his skin. Barry purred contently, drowsy and half-asleep as he rolled over onto his back with a smile, eyes closed. A soft, warm mouth sought his immediately and Barry responded in kind: Iris was such a great kisser… heavier than he remembered, and her mouth tasted differently, but hey, different world, right?

“Iris,” he sighed, and the mouth went away.

“Who the fuck is IRIS?!” a very male, unfortunately also very familiar voice snapped over him irritably and Barry’s eyes flew open.

“SNART?!” he yelped and shuffled back until he was pressed up against the headboard, resisting the silly urge to pull the blanket up to his chest.

Captain Fucking Cold sat back on his heels - ON BARRY’S BED - and scowled at him, his hands resting on his thighs. Shapely thighs, in jogging pants, and the rest of him in a tight tanktop and yeah okay he wasn’t bad-looking at all but he was a freaking VILLAIN, and he’d fucked Barry over VERY recently, what was he doing in Barry’s apartment?! Was he here for revenge?!

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the villain rolled his (pretty, green-blue) eyes. “Don’t tell me you got whammied with some memory loss shit. AGAIN. That’s the seventh fucking time, Barry, this is not 'cool’ anymore,” he said, smirking at the 'cool’. Yeah, bad puns were still a thing in this world, apparently.

“WHAT are you doing here?!” Barry yelped in response, a slight tone of hysteria creeping into his voice.

“I LIVE here,” Snart frowned.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do,” Snart huffed. “You’re wearing my damn sweatshirt,” he pointed at Barry’s chest. “Who did you fight? I’m calling Ramon, he’ll know how to fix you.”

“You don’t live here,” Barry scowled, “and I’m not crazy, I didn’t fight anyone, I just…”

Came from another dimension. Wait. So if Hartley and Wells… and Cisco and Ray… could it be that… Barry and LEONARD SNART?

Aw fuck.


	2. Len is handy with home repairs

Barry comes back from the bathroom cursing under his breath and soaking wet: his hair’s dripping, his shirt sticks to his chest and his pants look like he’s three years old and not completely in control of his bladder.   
  
Len gives him a quick once-over, smirking over his morning newspaper.

“Not that I’m complaining, but is that the look you’re going with today?”

Barry drops down into a chair opposite his annoyingly smug boyfriend and as a punishment, pulls Len’s coffee towards himself (which, of course, ends up with him having to struggle not to make a face, because Len takes his coffee really, really black, but it’s worth the mournful look Len shoots at the cup).

  
“Get ready for a weekend of sponge-baths, the shower’s broken,” Barry announces when he’s done with the disgusting sludge that is Len’s morning drink, then lets his head fall into his hands. “I don’t even have the money to call a plumber, oh my god. Can we just move to one of your hideouts which you swear you don’t have anymore but I know you do? Please? I won’t even judge you for having one. With a working shower.”

Len doesn’t even deny the hideouts, just shrugs and gets up to get himself more Zombie Blood, TM.

“I can help, you know.”

“I don’t want your money,” Barry says automatically: he’s still not reasonably sure how Len’s money happens, and how much of what he has put into stocks and stuff is from heists. He doesn’t think he’ll  _ever_  be sure, which just means that he feels like an awful person whenever he lets Len pay for dinner or even buy toilet paper.

“I mean the plumbing,” Len snorts, and Barry lifts his head up because he needs visual confirmation for this.

  
“You can do that?” he asks incredulously, which earns him an affronted glare.

  
“Of course.”

  
As if to prove himself, Len forgets his coffee and his newspaper and walks to the bathroom – a hiss later, he comes out, significantly less dry and a  _not_ amused.

  
“You could’ve at least turned off the water, you know,” he snarls, and Barry raises an eyebrow.

  
“How?”  
  
Len doesn’t grace that with a comment – he just changes into jeans and a (dry) shirt and goes out: when he comes back half an hour later, he’s carrying a large toolbox and Barry blinks up from his Netflix marathon.

  
“So you’re really gonna try that.”

“I’m not gonna  _try_ , Scarlet. I know what I’m doing.”

  
“ _This_  I have to see,” Barry bounces after Len towards the bathroom.

Turns out he’s right. Also turns out that the sight of Len handling pipes is unfairly hot, and not just for the thinly veiled innuendos. Competence and self-assurance are qualities Barry has always liked in Len, and right now the ex-Rogue looks like he’s one-hundred-percent sure of what he’s doing.

  
“Hand me the Allen,” Len stretches his hand towards Barry, who giggles, takes Len’s hand and steps into the shower with him, snuggling up to his side.

Len gives him a dry look.

  
“The Allen, Scarlet. A little bent thing-”

Barry collapses into inappropriate giggles and Len steps around him with a long-suffering sigh towards the toolbox. Barry casts a hopeless look into the heap of metal over Len’s shoulder - he thinks he recognizes a screwdriver there, but that’s as far as he goes, really.

Len adeptly unscrews whatever needs to be unscrewed and peers into things Barry has never seen before, and then he declares it’s something with a valve or some ring or another, and Barry has zero idea what it all means but suddenly he gets those people who don’t understand science at all but think it’s hot when someone talks about difficult concepts with even more difficult words.

Turns out you can make out even in a broken shower – and sponge baths are not all that awful for a moment. Which is good, because the shower doesn’t get fixed until later in the afternoon: Barry takes full responsibility for that, but he doesn’t hear Len complaining.

…………………….

“Oh my god, I am  _so_  jealous,” Iris declares over coffee, sighing dreamily as Barry recounts the tales of Len the Plumber. “You’re so lucky. Eddie’s hard-pressed to change a lightbulb,” she snickers.

Barry’s glad that their relationship improved significantly since he started living with Len (after the initial five-week-phase of aggressive disapproval from all of his friends plus Joe). Now, he and Iris can trade gossip about their guys and it feels amazing to be able to really listen to her talk about Eddie and have someone of his own to come home to, instead of pining after Iris uselessly. It’s just as well that even a year after their wedding, Iris is head over heels for Detective Thawne, because Barry senses he’s equally annoying with his talking about Len, and with Iris, he can afford to be as sappy as he wants to be.

So naturally, after the praises he sings about Len being so handy, Iris ends up calling Barry (and Len) just a few days later:

  
“Barry, help? Something started leaking behind the wall and the landlord said it’s gonna cost us, like, three hundred at least… could Len look at it?”

It doesn’t take long to persuade Len to do it: he and Eddie have this weird rivalry going on, and Barry’s not even sure if it’s spurred by the fact that one of them used to make a living chasing the other, or if it’s this alpha-male thing about Barry (who, according to Len, used to have a crush on Eddie) and Iris (who unashamedly admires Len’s tattooed arms). So showing up at Iris and Eddie’s place in a tank-top would be the highlight of Len’s day by normal circumstances anyway: showing up and being able to do something Eddie can’t is a cherry on the testosterone cake.

“I’m sure it won’t take much to fix that,” Len says confidently, and turns to Eddie: “You got tools?”

Eddie scowls and opens up the nearest kitchen drawer – Len glances at the two screwdrivers and a hammer and gives Eddie the most condescending, dry look he is capable of. Barry knows he’s a horrible person for being turned on by that, but… he doesn’t have to tell anyone, does he.

“ _Power_  tools,” Len snorts. Of course he ends up having to bring his own, and while he’s cutting through the drywall to get to the leaky part, stretching over the kitchen counter which perfectly shows off his back(side) and his tattooed shoulders, Barry just gives Iris a knowing grin, which she (to Eddie’s utter displeasure) returns.

…..

After that, Barry’s apartment apparently decides that it likes Plumber Len a lot, too: a bursting pipe there, a leaking window there, and Len’s busy at least once a week. Barry enjoys the view profoundly, especially when Len just gives up and leaves his tools in the hallway closet all the time, along with a very, very nice leather tool-belt that brackets Len’s perfect ass in a way that makes Barry’s throat go dry.

Especially when he comes home after a day spent in the lab (with a few ‘breaks’ to stop a mugging and two robberies) and finds Len half-naked, in his favorite torn jeans and  _that tool belt_ , leaning against the counter with his best come-hither look and a smirk on his lips.

“I don’t feel like doing actual repairs today as foreplay,” he states bluntly, and Barry’s in front of him in a flash, chuckling as he kisses Len, slow and teasing and light.

  
Len’s hand brushes up his neck, fingers dragging through the short hair at the nape of Barry’s neck.

  
“Please, never call an actual plumber if you react to all of them like this,” he deadpans before leaning in for another kiss: and Barry’s completely okay with that, as long as Len keeps that belt (and  _the Allen_ ) around.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Repost from my [tumblr.](http://pheuthe.tumblr.com/)


	3. meeting at a gay bar AU

The rhythm immediately worms its way under Barry’s skin, insistent and irresistible, drawing him deeper into the crowd, deeper into the night. He can feel his heart picking up the pace, just a little bit, to match the drums that make his whole chest echo the music. The whole place is a throbbing mass of bodies, of want and need, everything raw and exposed and out there.

Barry never thought he would fall in love with a club like this. It’s not the men – he’s always known that men held a certain inexplicable, animalistic appeal that could not simply be explained away by a skinny geek wishing he could be like those muscular, hyper-masculine gods. No – it’s the noise of it, the unrest. Barry spends his life in libraries and labs, bent over a microscope instead of a neon-lit bar. His excitement comes from an experiment gone right, from little bits of a scientific puzzle falling right into place because of what he knows, what he can do. Barry’s power is in his brain, definitely not in his body: but that’s fine, that doesn’t bother him all that much… most of the time.

Because no matter how comfortable he is with who he is, with all the gangly, spazzy, nerdy bits of himself, there are days like this, when Iris texts him a whole army of exclamation marks, and there’s a guy’s name somewhere in those messages, lost in the sea of ‘dreamy’ and ‘perfect’ and ‘omg!!!!!!u should see him’, and Barry knows he should be happy for her, and mostly, he is, but all he can do before he texts her back something light and funny is stare at his phone… and  _wish_. Wish that she could see him like that – wish that he could _become_  what she sees. Iris has a great taste in guys, and no matter how hot her boyfriends are, they’re almost never assholes, but that just makes it so much worse for Barry. It’s not that  he wants her to date men who don’t treat her right: it’s just that somehow, the eyes that are currently looking at Iris with absolute adoration and devotion are always in the face of a guy who looks like he’s just stepped out of a fashion magazine’s frontpage. Barry can’t measure up to that, and it’s frustrating to think that no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much he’s  _there_  for her, he can’t put his brain into a body she will find attractive.  

Gay clubs don’t exactly make that go away. Out of the swirl of sweaty bodies, most of them are kinda ripped, and Barry’s inferiority complex about his eternal state of ‘skinny’ doesn’t just magically disappear. But at least here, he can dance and drink and forget himself for a while, without having to look into the dancing crowd and have every swish of dark, shiny hair make his heart stop with hope, daydreams and then heartbreak.  
  
He sits at the bar, orders a beer: the night is just starting out, since Barry went out a little too early; the dance floor isn’t empty, but there’s still breathing room, and the bar’s not surrounded by wasted guys so far. Barry prefers it like that – he stayed too late once or twice, but that never led to anything good, and after he had to say ‘no’ a little too forcefully a couple of times, he always makes it a point to arrive well before eleven and take his leave before one.   
  
Sipping slowly on his beer, he looks around. It’s not that he’s looking for a hook-up – he’s never gone home with someone before – but he wouldn’t turn down a bit of dancing and maybe some making out under the bright strobe lights.  The music makes it hard to think, which is exactly what he’s looking for right now, so he leans against his elbows and just watches, letting the beat suck him in, until he’s tapping his fingers into the bar, his restless leg bouncing up and down.

  
“Wouldn’t it be easier to dance?” a warm breath washes over his ear and Barry nearly falls off the bar stool. He rights himself, prepared to see pity, disgust in the guy’s eyes – he’s seen it so many times before. Everyone here is looking for a fairy-tale, for a bright, golden lie, and those don’t come with guys like him, guys who fall off chairs and spill drinks and elbow people by accident while dancing.  
  
But the cool, steely eyes that meet his are steady, if a little amused. And god, Barry’s breath catches because this guy… wow. Iris would use at  _least_ twelve exclamation marks and five rapidly-fired messages to describe him; and Barry almost winces at the thought because forgetting Iris is the very reason he’s here, he should  _not_ be thinking about how she would like the guy who’s clearly interested, if his eyes, half-lidded and challenging, are any indication.  
  
“H-Hi,” Barry gets out, and then he realizes the guy probably can’t hear him, so Barry makes an aborted motion to lean closer, stopping himself when he figures repeating himself for a ‘hi’ would probably be useless anyway. He manages to avoid head-butting the guy, though, so that counts as a plus.  
  
The man slides right into Barry’s space in one fluid motion. His eyes glitter with the neon lights now, his eyelashes impossible and as he glances down. Barry licks his lips as if the guy’s eyes are somehow attached to something in Barry’s brain, controlling his actions. He’s frozen in place, but it’s the good kind of frozen, the exciting kind.  
  


The eyes flicker back up to Barry’s, narrowing a little and Barry’s worried for a split second before he realizes the narrowing is a result of a smile, crooked, lopsided, and holy hell, Barry’s never really went from zero to ‘yes please can we kiss’ in five seconds, but he’s on board now, for anything the guy might want from him.

He even sends a prayer to the heaven, wishing that what this guy wants won’t be ‘can you sit somewhere else, I’m waiting for my boyfriend’ (yes, that’s happened, and Barry’s  _not_  thinking about that now).

“Hi,” the man purrs, and Barry wonders how he can make the same thing  _Barry_ said before sound so… right, easy, like it’s all he needs to get whoever he wants. Well – looking like  _this_ , it probably is enough, every time.

  
“How about a dance?” the man leans in, speaking right into Barry’s ear in that deep drawl that vibrates inside Barry’s chest, makes him want to move.

  
“S-sure,” he nods: his cheek brushes the guy’s nose, and  _that_  certainly hasn’t been sexy ever before, wow. Barry moves to get off that bar stool – his glass catches against his elbow and only the man’s reflexes prevent the rest of Barry’s drink from ending up on his snow-white shirt, glowing blue in the UV light. Barry’s mortified for all of a second, before surprisingly cool fingers curl around his wrist, stroke up his forearm, then back down, wrapping around Barry’s palm.  
  
“Let’s get you away from all the glass,” the man leans in again, amused but not mean, and Barry even tentatively smiles back at him: funny, he expected the man to be taller once they’re standing up, but he’s around the same height as Barry, and Barry’s totally fine with that.   
  
He lets that cool hand guide him into the gyrating crowd: he barely registers what song is playing when the man slides his hand to Barry’s waist. He doesn’t press up against Barry – their bodies barely brush as they start to move, knee, hip, chest (and that cool hand against Barry’s ribs) and Barry feels absurd because he’s both glad and disappointed about that.

Barry does his best to come off as suave and experienced, but he knows he’s shit at it: he’s always been. He’s not a bad dancer, but when he’s nervous, he becomes a little less coordinated than he would like to. It goes predictably badly this time as well: his elbow knocks against someone behind him and Barry turns to apologize on reflex, but of course that’s impossible with so many people around and the music so loud. He turns back, and his hand brushes against his partner’s crotch by accident: Barry’s definitely thrown out of the rhythm now, staring with wide eyes at the man and mouthing ‘sorry!’.   
  
The man’s hand slips away from his waist: Barry’s terrified he’ll be left alone on the dance floor (again), but instead, his hands are guided around the man’s neck, and the cool fingers return to brush lightly against Barry’s ribs.

  
He can’t help but smile: and he knows gratitude of a startled mostly-virgin isn’t attractive in a place like this, so he tries apologizing again, but when he leans close, the man is faster, his lips half an agonizing inch away from Barry’s earlobe.  
  
“I’m Len. You?”

A knee wedges between Barry’s legs, not pressing up, just making room for comfortable movement along the song’s rhythm. Barry still can’t help but groan a little bit. The hands at his ribs tighten a little.

  
“Barry,” he yells back over the music and then stops thinking for real.

  
He’s danced with people in this place: there have been a few guys he kinda liked. But no one has ever made him feel like Len, like every inch of his body was sparking with energy, like he could feel every neuron in his body firing, separately and all together. Len’s well-built, but not too broad, his shouders the perfect size for Barry to wrap his arms around, to let his fingers brush against the slightly sweaty skin – are those tattoos peeking out from Len’s collar? Barry tries to squint against the pulsating lights, but he’s not sure, even as he brushes the tips of his fingers under the thin fabric, a couple inches down towards Len’s shoulderblade.

  
Len honest to god shudders against him, and his hands, long-fingered and steady, caress Barry’s back, a soft touch in distinct contrast to the resolute, punishing beat of the music. Barry likes that, so he brushes his fingers against the same spot again. He thinks he hears Len moan, but against the backdrop of the music, he’s not sure. The song transitions into another one, and Barry really can’t say whether this is the third or the fifth that they’re dancing together, but he finds himself hoping it’s not the last.

It becomes quite apparent that Len has no intention of letting him go just yet, though. After a while, he drops his hands from Barry’s back, steps away just enough for Barry to drop his hands from Len’s shoulders, and turns Barry around, pressing up against him from behind. Barry’s never liked this kind of dancing too much, always feeling too exposed, like he’s being paraded for someone’s viewing pleasure by his dancing partner – but Len’s arms come around him from behind, making him feel stupidly, irrationally safe, like Len’s got no intention to show him off to anyone, like Len wants to keep all of Barry to himself. One cool hand rests against Barry’s sternum, the other hooks into his belt-loop at his hip, and Barry suddenly doesn’t remember what’s there not to like about this.

A song Barry knows comes on – it’s a remake of some old, silly tune, and he can’t help but laugh quietly into the lights: he doesn’t remember when was it that he threw his head back and rested it on Len’s shoulder, but Len seems alright with that, his nose brushing lightly against Barry’s sensitive neck. It makes him giggle more, but the sound quickly turns into a groan as Len’s hand, still hooked into his belt-loop, moves, his long fingers teasing the spot where Barry’s thigh meets his hip, not low enough to be really worrying, not low enough to be  _more,_ but Barry wants,  _needs_ -

He grabs backwards, needing more contact, grabs at Len’s hip and what feels like a perfectly muscled, tight butt – a surprised exhale warms Barry’s shoulder as he raises his other arm, hooking his fingers against the back of Len’s neck, the soft hair cut so short they’re barely there. He turns his head, just so, and Len’s there, meeting him halfway and his lips taste like mint, and Barry would wonder what he was drinking but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters because Len’s lips close against his, tugging at Barry’s mouth and he’s lost in the sensation.

He twists in Len’s arms when his neck starts to hurt – though he has to admit, it’s more because he wants to kiss Len properly, without the awkward (albeit hot) pose. Len’s thumb is still tangled in his belt loop and they have to break apart for a moment so he doesn’t end up breaking Len’s finger by accident: Len’s chuckling as he catches Barry’s lips again, and Barry’s never thought laughing into a kiss could be hot but it is, god, it  _is_.  
  
He’s hyper-aware of everything: Len’s hands that sneak up under his shirt, stroke along his back, and how can his fingers still feel so cool when Barry’s skin is overheating? Len’s body, a solid mass against Barry’s chest, Len’s heart that he can feel where they’re pressed up together so tight. Len’s soundless moans that vibrate against Barry’s lips when Barry scratches his nails down Len’s scalp; Len’s smell, clean sweat sticking his skin to Barry’s forearms. The people around them, who are all unimportant, the strobe lights making Barry’s eyelids explode with color so he doesn’t know if he’s actually seeing fireworks or it’s just his stupid romantic take of things. The song they move to, languidly and far more slowly than before, more slowly than they should, probably, but god, Barry can’t stop kissing Len even for a second, the other man’s mouth, his lips, his tongue, his teeth like the air Barry needs to exist. He knows he will never be able to hear ‘Cold as Ice’ after this and keep a straight face, no blushing, no giggling, but it doesn’t matter: kissing Len right now is worth any embarrassment further down the line.  
  
They pull away when Barry is reminded with burning urgency that he does need actual air: the space between them is full of rushed breaths and Len’s eyes, _god_ , his eyes seem to beg Barry for what he is usually unwilling to give in such a place, but now-

  
“Wanna get out of here?” he pants against Len’s ear, trembling and terrified and  _wanting_  so much it’s killing him. Len’s hands slip out from under Barry’s shirt and he’s worried he’s gone too fast, that he’s overstepped some boundary, that Len will say thanks but no thanks, this has been fun but that’s all.

  
And then Len nods, tangling his fingers in Barry’s, and Barry finds himself being led outside. He barely registers bumping into people along the way – when has the dancefloor become this packed? The blast of cool midnight air against his face is like a slap and he shivers: in the next second, he’s hardly got any mental capacity to think about how he’s sure to catch a cold out here because Len’s all up in his space and the brick wall of the club is pressing into Barry’s shoulder-blades as Len licks into his mouth, his hand back where it is supposed to be, under Barry’s shirt and stroking up, up, until a thumb catches against Barry’s nipple and he would be embarrassed about how much he can be heard in the alley outside, away from the loud music, but all he can focus on is  _yes_  and  _now_.   
  
It understandably takes him a while to register that Len’s other hand is undoing his belt buckle. He catches Len’s wrist, startled into action, and cool blue eyes come up to meet his as Len frowns up at him in confusion. His expression softens almost immediately and Barry wonders just how startled he must look if Len’s suddenly cupping his cheek and smiling a little.  
  
“We don’t have to do anything. It’s okay.”

Barry takes a breath – it’s not that he doesn’t want to, just…  
  
“Not here,” he says, voice all sorts of shot and shaky. He wants Len, so much he’s trembling with the force of it, but not in the street, not like… like it doesn’t _mean_  anything. Barry’s not fooling himself into thinking this is going to turn into some sort of a sweet love story: hook-ups from bars rarely end that way (even though a part of his brain is completely into imagining bringing Len to a Saturday lunch at Joe’s). But no matter how little this thing they have right now could mean in the grand scheme of things, he doesn’t want to remember Len like a dirty fuck in public, like something any passer-by is invited to watch, like they don’t mean enough to each other to move to privacy. He doesn’t want this to feel cheaper than it is, and Len must get it because he searches Barry’s eyes for a moment and dips his head in a simple nod.

  
“Your place or mine?”

  
“Mine,” Barry says after a second’s hesitation: bringing a stranger to his home is not what Joe, or anyone sane, would condone, but it sure beats letting the stranger lead him god knows where. Barry’s half in love with Len by now, the kind of immediate, lightning-bolt love that has the lifespan of a mayfly (at least he hopes so), but he’s not sex-stupid enough not to wish for the security of his own home.

“Do you always invite strangers to your place so easily?” Len smirks, echoing Barry’s thoughts, all cocky and teasing.

  
“You’re the first,” Barry laughs breathlessly, and Len just looks at him for a moment as if he’s looking for some catch. Barry decides that might have been too much honesty, considering they’ve known each other all of an hour.

  
“Sorry,” he tells Len’s chest, watching it rise and fall, still a little too quickly from their earlier activities. Len hooks a finger under his chin, making him look up. Barry swallows.

  
“Please don’t be a serial killer,” he whimpers, and Len’s laughing quietly, the sound soft and soothing before he presses a kiss to the corner of Barry’s mouth.

  
“I’m not. Lead the way.”

….

Later on, when the phantom touch of Len’s mouth still burns all over Barry’s body, when his insides are aching for Len’s lubed-up fingers, when he can still taste latex and sweat in his mouth, he opens his eyes as the mattress shifts, letting go of the weight of another body, and a soft clink of Len’s belt buckle echoes through the silent room (Barry remembers the sound of it from when he threw it across the room earlier, knocking down a picture frame with it).  
  
He takes in the outline of Len’s body, silhouetted against the paling sky beyond Barry’s window. He’s so beautiful, and things could be so simple like this, and Barry aches for all the secrets they will never share with each other, all the lazy mornings and arguments over stupid TV shows that were always just in his head. It makes him sentimental, mournful, and it makes him plead.

  
“Stay.”

Len stops, his shirt only halfway down his torso. He pulls it down, kneels on the mattress, and his lips on Barry’s forehead are still so, so cool.

  
“I never stay,” he says, and Barry doesn’t grab for him, because he doesn’t want to be one of those needy, whiny people who make scenes about things the others are not willing to give. Something in Len’s voice tingles with regret, and that’s maybe enough, for a little while, to think that Len wants to stay at least half as much as Barry wants to wake up in his arms.

He doesn’t fully understand why Len didn’t stay until fourteen months later, when he sees a face that his lips still remember peek out of a black full-body suit while stopping a robbery; Barry flips through the folder Joe hands him later wishing he would find proof that he was wrong, that it was just his mind playing tricks, that the man they’re talking about isn’t  _his_  Len.

It wasn’t, and it is - when Leonard Snart, Captain Cold and a wanted thief and killer figures out his identity, Barry pulls his mask off his face in front of him and wonders whether Len remembers him at all. Len – Cold – doesn’t react, and Barry lets it go, or at least he’s trying to. But then he goes to ask Snart for help, and the guy fiddles with the jukebox until ‘Cold as Ice’ starts playing, and he writes ‘meet me at that bar tonight’ on a piece of paper like it’s a price so high he can’t even speak it out loud.

Barry’s done feeling cheap for anyone, so he says ‘no’, acts like the very idea affronts him, erases Snart’s criminal records like that is easier in his book than agreeing to see Snart as ‘Len’ ever again.

  
But a part of him, the part that allowed him to take a stranger home a year and a half ago, tells him things aren’t as black and white as he would like to make them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Repost from my [tumblr.](http://pheuthe.tumblr.com/)


	4. first meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Len first meet right after Barry's mom is killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one isn't truly 'coldflash', as Barry is only eleven in here. The idea of kid!Barry meeting Len accidentally the night when his mom was killed popped into my head... so naturally I couldn't resist giving it a try to see what happens.

Barry is running – he’s never been too good at it, always too slow for his bigger stronger (meaner) classmates. Running has never solved anything for him in his whole life, and he knows it’s not really a solution now, but he can’t bear to look at the faces of everyone around, full of pity for him and contempt for his father, who does not deserve that at all.

They’ve taken his father away: Barry doesn’t really know where, just that someone, someplace, is deciding about the fate of all the family Barry has left and he has no illusions about how that decision is going to go. He screamed for a long time that his father is innocent, and nobody has believed him yet; nobody in this sea of CCPD faces that Barry used to think were friends, and now he’s not so sure. Do they know about the thing that’s out there, the thing that killed his mother? Do they know and do they just pretend not to, like adults always pretend about things like Santa Claus and death and babies?

The walls of CCPD seem to bear down on him, making him want to run outside, get some air: but they will get him outside, and Barry wants to disappear now more than he wants to breathe. A door enters his sight as he turns another corner: there’s no one in the corridor, and the door is invitingly cracked open, the shadowed line of the room behind inviting to Barry like darkness has never been before. He’s been terrified of the dark for so long that it’s now a little silly of him to be running into it, but the thing that killed his mother did not come out of the dark after all, so he thinks maybe he’s going to take his chances.

Voices come in from afar: Barry has a split second to decide, and it’s not really that hard to choose between the darkness and getting dragged back to that social worker lady who keeps asking all those awful questions about whether he saw Dad hurt Mom before. Barry slips through the doorway, his pulse hammering in his ears as he looks around, willing his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. 

It’s a simple room, from what Barry can make out: cabinets line the windowless walls and a table sits in the middle, with two chairs opposite each other. It’s not an office, and Barry wonders if they bring criminals here – if his dad is in a room like this, with a frowning policeman leaning against the table across him, telling him to just ‘make it easier on all of us’ and confess to a crime he never committed. He wonders if he’s fast enough to run further, to try and find out that room with his dad in it – but the voices in the corridor outside grow louder, closer, and Barry panics.

His first look goes to the table – if nobody enters, if they keep the lights off, nobody would see him. 

“…know, Chyre, but we don’t have anyplace better for him right now, so just chill, okay? We’ll cuff him to the table, he’s not going anywhere.”

Barry whips around. He can make out the outline of someone through the milky glass of the door – they’re going to find him, and they’re going to bring him back to the social worker and she doesn’t listen, none of them do and Barry has to hide.

He takes a few quick, silent steps to the cabinets: the first one is locked, the next one is full of drawers, but the third one is just what Barry needs: massive, wooden and old, with big shelves inside stuffed with papers and folders and several boxes. He squeezes inside: it’s a tight fit, but he’s small for his age and he’s never been as grateful for it as now. Rationally, he knows he shouldn’t be hiding, but his heart’s beating madly in his chest and he’s terrified of what happened tonight, of what will happen after tonight if they end up taking his dad away for real, and he doesn’t want to face that fear just yet.

Just as he manages to pull the cabinet door as closed as he can from the inside, the men from the corridor step inside.

“Now, no funny business, Snart – someone’s gonna be with you in a minute. Or an hour. Not like you’re in a hurry, huh,” a deep voice laughs: Barry thinks he’s heard that policeman before, but he’s not sure. Someone is dragging a chair over the floor for a second, and then a succession of muffled sounds, followed by clicking of handcuffs. Footsteps retreat, and Barry’s heart speeds up. Did they bring a criminal here right now? Oh, just his luck. Now he’s stuck in the cabinet for who knows how long… but at least they won’t look for him here, will they?

He’s not sure how much time passes – probably just minutes, but in the tight, dusty space, it feels like hours. His legs, curled up weirdly around a box, start cramping: Barry winces and tries to shuffle in the dark quietly, but his sleeve catches on something and it almost makes him cry out as he pulls away from the thing.

Turns out it’s just an old stapler – unfortunately for Barry, it ends up clattering off the shelf, banging against the half-closed door on its way to the floor.

“Who’s there?!” a sharp voice asks, followed by a screech of a chair, a rattle of something metallic – it sounds like the criminal is turning to the source of the noise. Barry puts a hand over his mouth: but it’s silly, it’s not as if he was betrayed by his own breathing or sneezing or anything like that.

“If you’re one of the Darbynian goons, I don’t have your damn money, as is quite apparent from my current position,” the man continues, and he sounds almost amused to Barry. He considers staying in the cabinet – it’s not like the man can actually get to him, the cabinet is far enough from the table to which he is chained, if the officers who brought him in did what they said they would. But the thing is… the criminal now knows someone’s there. And Barry’s leg is cramping really, really badly and he needs to get out, and maybe he can slip out unnoticed, find another room to hide.

Slowly, he crawls out, wincing as he steps on the leg that hurts: for a moment, he allows himself to mourn that he’s growing up, too big now to hide in every tight space in the world.

“A kid?” the criminal asks incredulously, which makes Barry look up: he didn’t want to see the man’s face, originally, in case he’s dangerous and doesn’t want people to know who he is, or something – but now there’s no helping it. And… he doesn’t look particularly violent, the criminal. He’s young: a lot older than Barry, somewhere between twenty and thirty, most likely, with a buzz-cut and pale, inquisitive eyes. He doesn’t look like a murderer at all – but Barry reminds himself that his father doesn’t look like one either and yet the whole CCPD believes in his guilt.

“Don’t talk to me,” he huffs – he’s not here to associate with actual bad people, he just wants his dad to take him home. 

The criminal laughs.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Barry,” he says before he can stop himself, his mother’s manners instilled in him too deep to refuse to answer. Heat rises up to his face, angry and painful, stinging in his eyes as he thinks of his mom, lying in the middle of their living room, right where she consoled him after being chased by those bullies just a few hours ago. Has it really just been hours…? It’s starting to feel like days.

“Hey now, don’t cry… I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.”

“I know,” Barry huffs defiantly. “You’re cuffed to a table.”

That drags a laugh out of the criminal, and Barry scowls. He’s not in the mood to have people laughing at him – he’s had enough condescending, disbelieving adults for one day.

“And don’t call me kid,” he adds, his chin jutting out even as his eyes continue to sting. “I told you my name.”

“Fair enough… Barry,” the criminal smiles, and it really should say something about Barry’s state of mind that he finds the expression more welcoming, even from a criminal, than the pitiful glances of the policemen who came to take his Dad away from him. “I’m Len. Nice to meet you.”

Barry shuffles on his feet. He can’t really feel the same, because how is it nice to meet a guy who did… who knows what? But again, manners, so he finds himself mumbling ‘you too’, and the criminal – Len – gives him another smirk. 

“So what’re you in for?”

Barry scowls.

“I didn’t do anything. Neither did my Dad.”

“Ah,” Len nods slowly. “What do they say he did?”

Barry’s insides clench as the image of his mom resurfaces, lying on the floor, blood everywhere and her eyes startlingly blank. He tries not to sniff, but there’s snot trying to drip down his nose so he has to, and his head’s starting to hurt.

“My… mom,” he says, but his lip trembles and he has to bite down into it hard to steady himself. His fists clench at his sides. He sniffles again, and Len’s eyes grow soft – he looks younger when he’s not smirking, Barry thinks. 

“Sorry, kid. Barry.”

“He didn’t do it!” he yells, then looks around in fear that someone outside could’ve heard: he takes a step closer to Len when he’s sure nobody’s coming, and scowls at him: “My Dad would never do that. Nobody believes me, but he didn’t do it. There was this… red and yellow blur. Like a tornado. It was around Mom, and… then I was out of the house and she-”

Barry chokes on the rest of that, and expects to be told that he must’ve seen it wrong, that it was just his imagination. Len looks at him, gives Barry time to stop shaking, and then shrugs:

“That’s the thing about cops. They never believe kids who say things they don’t like.”

There’s something unpleasant, biting and cold in his voice, and Barry wonders if he used to be a kid who no one believed too. 

Steps echo in the corridor again, before Barry can ask about that: Len’s eyes shoot to the door, then back to Barry:

“Look, kid – don’t let them tell you what you saw, okay? They won’t believe you, doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. Just remember that.”

“Alright, Snart- what the HELL?! Barry, what are you doing here?” Joe yells, and Barry doesn’t have the time to say ‘bye’ – he doesn’t want to, for fear that if Joe West and the other policemen realize he’s been talking to a criminal, they won’t ever believe him for real. But he manages to glance back at Len over his shoulder and nod: he is going to remember, and he’s never going to let anyone make him believe that his Dad was the reason why his Mom is dead.

Months later, when he’s settling in to his new room at Joe’s house, when his Dad is in prison, when he finds a short article in some old newspaper about an “unexplained disappearance,” he remembers.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t true,” he whispers as he cuts out the article and saves it for later.


	5. 1920s!AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [coldflashtrash](http://coldflashtrash.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr, who came up with this fantastic AU.

Barry’s hands shake, just a little bit, when he speaks the password to the invisible doorman; the alley smells like piss and trash and vomit, and Barry wonders, for the hundredth time, why had he agreed to do this. Not that he has to: the answer to his ‘why’ is that he’s always been a little too soft on Iris, even when it includes requests of her soon-to-be husband. It doesn’t help that Eddie’s incredibly nice for a fed.

 

The plan is easy: the first part of it is done as soon as Barry takes the creaky, narrow staircase to the basement of the seemingly dilapidated building. He does not let the shady, dusty exterior lull him into a false sense of security – he’s there to be a witness, to help close down one of the many, many businesses thriving on people’s need for an escape in a glass of shady liquor.

 

He can barely see through the smoke; the owner has apparently made an effort to pretty the place up, but in the end, it’s just a basement, with tiny tables cramped together on the slightly uneven ground and a small nook for a jazz band in the corner. The music is nice, at the very least – Barry finds himself nodding to the lazy rhythm as he weaves through the crowd of men.

 

And it’s men – it’s all men, which is unusual, even for a place like this. In a way, Barry is relieved: he would not want to see any women hurt in the stampede that would surely come with the raid. He licks his lips and looks around, tries not to look conspicuous, tries not to think of the raid because he has never been a  good enough liar and he is terrified that the people in charge will read danger off his discomfort.  
  
Barry is torn out of his reverie by a man sliding into the chair next to him – a boy, really, his glasses too big for his face and his lips obscene, shiny. He’s got his hand over Barry’s on the table before Barry can even think about asking him, politely, to go away: Barry yanks his hand away as if burned.

  
“First time, darling?” the boy leers at him and Barry blushes wildly, considers leaving the whole plan behind, letting it all burn on its own because he would not have…

 

He stops himself in that thought. He knows very well he would have agreed – he would have put up a front, a fight, but he would have relented in the end, for Iris, for Eddie, for that sliver of curiosity that has been swirling, clenching in his stomach from the first moment he heard about men like this, men who enjoyed other men’s company for more than a good conversation.

 

Barry looks up at the boy across from him – a hand creeps to his knee, barely there through the material of his pants, but Barry’s skin itches under the touch. He’s not entirely sure it’s a good way: he pulls away, the hand follows.

  
“I think you mistake me for someone else,” his voice hitches in his throat. The boy leans closer.

  
“I think you should stop pretending like you’re not interested… Scarlet,” those slick lips widen in a feral grin, and Barry swallows. The boy is pretty, but there’s something unsettling about his vulgar directness – Barry must be blushing bad if the boy can see it through the heavy smoke hanging in the air, see it enough to nickname Barry on it.

  
“ _I_ think,” a smooth voice interrupts Barry’s messy thoughts, barely there over the trumpets and the piano, “I think you should take a hike.”

 

The man’s eyes burn in the dimly lit room – the kid across from Barry spits something, annoyed, but he does leave and Barry’s ‘panicked’ turns down to ‘unsettled’ for a moment, but then the stranger is filling the boy’s place and Barry shifts in his chair, hands trembling again with nerves. He might have been able to turn down the boy’s advances on his own: he is not so sure he will succeed if this man decides to take the aggressive approach.

 

And not just because he’s older, bigger and most likely stronger than Barry: there’s something about him that makes Barry want to surrender. He’s wearing a dark blue suit that would appear black, were the light any dimmer; his hair is carefully slicked back, with just a slight show of curl, and when his impeccable hand comes to rest on the table, Barry follows every gracious bend of his long fingers with his eyes, imagining what life would be like if he were born with the boldness of the boy from earlier.

  
“Call me Len,” the man purrs, and Barry finds himself craving a drink, even if he was warned against it.

  
“Why should I call you anything?” he shoots back – the man’s, Len’s confidence rubs something in him the wrong way, makes him rise to a challenge where he usually keeps his trap shut and falls in line. He does not know it is bad, but he does not know it is good either.

 

“Because you want to,” Len leans in: Barry was trembling not a minute ago for fear of that boy getting closer, and now he finds himself trembling again, terrified that the invisible line Len has chosen to stop his advances will never be crossed. He turns his head a little to look at the man: his eyes still burn, dangerous and all too hot as they steadily stare away every single bit of Barry’s defenses. The air in the speakeasy is stifling, but Barry still fancies that he feels Len’s breath against his cheek.

  
“I… I don’t even know you?” Barry’s voice breaks, heartbeat hitching in shameful disappointment when the distance between them widens.

  
“What would you like to know?”

 

Len’s smirk is cocky and amused and self-assured, and Barry would normally resent that kind of confidence in another; he even resents it a little now, but it just makes him prove… something, to Len, to himself.

  
“What do you do for a living?” he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: Len laughs, no doubt at him, but the rich sound echoes within Barry’s chest and Len is forgiven without ever knowing he was in danger of falling from Barry’s good graces.

 

“I work in a soup kitchen,” Len’s lips curl up, a pinch of mischief with a hint of a challenge on those dry, slightly chapped lips and Barry can’t seem to look away. “We should get some fresh air,” Len adds, and it’s not an offer, it’s a command – Barry’s body obeys almost without him knowing it. Len navigates the narrow spaces between chairs and tables and backs and knees, and his back is strong and sure, right in front of Barry’s eyes all the time, even when the main floor of the speakeasy becomes a side door, a corridor so dark it’s almost impossible to see, narrowed even further by the shelves lining the walls. If Barry gropes in the dark for something to hold on to, it’s purely so he won’t stumble and fall by accident; if Len’s long, long fingers weave between Barry’s knuckles, it is simply because he must not want Barry to destroy the precious contraband.

 

They reach a door, at the end of the corridor – Len stops, Barry reaches for the doorknob automatically, but he’s tugged out of the way, his back to that door in a split second. His heart is threatening to jump right out of his chest, his insides liquid and stormy when Len presses into him, beautiful hands and burning eyes, dry lips seeking refuge against Barry’s mouth, thirsty, possessive, tender.  
  
Soft sighs turn into ‘go’, and Barry doesn’t understand, doesn’t _want to_ , but when his blood stops roaring in his ears for a moment, he can hear the jazz has stopped, replaced by panicked screams and sounds of shuffling, running, breaking.

 

He’s pushed out into crispy, cold night and the last thing he sees before the door is slammed shut is Len’s eyes, blazing with the want that Barry can still taste against his tongue like cheap liquor that made him blind to reason.

 

He is not even surprised when he goes over the whole mess with Eddie later and finds Len among the photographs of Al Capone’s right hand men, helping run the man’s business.

 

He _is_ a little surprised at himself when he pockets the photograph the moment nobody’s looking.

 

And he should be surprised when he finds himself knocking on another dusty door, but he’s really, really not.  
  



	6. Frozen!AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frozen!AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Frozen!AU requested through my followers appreciation giveaway by [gemenice](http://gemenice.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.
> 
> Set post-movie.

The door to the old barn creaks like a murder of extremely annoyed crows when it moves. That’s why Len chose this particular place; he doesn’t like surprises.

His life must not have gotten that memo, though, because it brings him a surprise in the form of one lanky, bashful King.

“Where did you go?” Barry asks – somewhat redundantly, in Len’s opinion, considering they’re exactly where Len went.

“Somewhere I didn’t want to be found,” Len says pointedly, and Barry doesn’t even look sorry. He just marches right over to Len and plops his velvet-clad ass onto the warm, itchy hay.

Barry turns those ridiculously bright eyes to him with an innocent shrug. “Why?” 

Len dodges the question as best he can.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating your Thawing Day?” 

“Iris is there,” Barry shrugs, and Len flashes him an incredulous eyebrow-twitch.

“But you’re the King.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” Barry mutters, then grins at Len in a way that makes Len think of all the good things in life. He doesn’t like that feeling – it’s all too easy to forget that there are bad things, too.

“You guess?” Len snorts. “You mean you’re not sure if you’re the King? That’s a sad day for Arendelle, indeed.”

“No. I meant I might need someone to escort me back to the castle, you know… since I’m so important and all that,” Barry snickers.  
Len pulls his hand away from where it’s brushing hay off Barry’s silky white cloak. Why does he seem to be incapable of subconsciously reaching for this damn kid all the time? This kid, who is also his King. 

“And you think a thief is the best one to choose for this duty?” he says, wisely omitting the fact that Barry wouldn’t need to be escorted anywhere if he didn’t chase Len down and stayed put in his stupid huge castle.

“Hmm. Maybe not,” Barry agrees. Len’s stomach twists, which is stupid, because Barry leaving is exactly what he’s aiming for here. “But I think a knight would do?”

Len’s eyes snap up to Barry’s face – he expects the kid to laugh, but he looks completely serious, just holding Len’s gaze and waiting him out, like it’s Len who needs to think things through. Like it’s Len throwing around ridiculous half-formed offers.

“I’m a thief,” he points out again. Mick snorts behind him; Len absently reaches to his pocket for another carrot and hands it to the annoying reindeer.

“You could be more than that. I see the good in you… no matter how hard you try to hide it.”

Len screws his eyes shut; this was why he left in the first place, this horrible brat who thinks he sees into people’s souls, who almost iced the whole kingdom forever, who needed saving just a day ago. And now, he’s the one offering salvation and Len knows he should say something snide and walk away, but he thinks of a life he could have, and he thinks of how Lisa would be proud of him (and his father wouldn’t), and he finds himself looking up at Barry again with a slight nod.

“Alright. Just to be clear… Mick’s gonna expect royal servings of carrot every day.”

Barry laughs, picks himself up from the hay and offers Len a hand.


	7. 'i accidentally called you at 3am and we talked about deep stuff' AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by coldestflash on tumblr :) the original prompt was "Hey you called this number at like 3AM and we talked about some pretty heavy shit do you remember any of that?"

Barry was definitely not awake enough for this. It was ten in the morning and he _should_  have been well-rested, at least to the point of being able to get his coffee without wanting to fall asleep in the queue - but last night, someone has once again confused ‘68′ and ‘86′ and called him at three in the morning.

It happened at least once every couple of months; turned out Barry’s number was almost the same as the local suicide prevention hotline, and Barry never had the guts to hang up on those poor people. After all, if somebody felt shitty enough they felt like they needed to call for anonymous counselling in the middle of the night, then making a mistake with a phone number and being hung up on could set them off even worse, couldn’t it? It just never sat right with Barry to tell those people the truth: so he did his best to listen, to keep them talking as long as possible in hopes that it would help. He even got a few books after the third time it happened. Iris made light-hearted fun of him when he told her; and then, she frowned and told him that he  _should_  direct those people to the right number, because he was far from a licensed therapist and he could do more harm than good, in the end.

But he never quite brought himself to do that at the beginning of such a call. He let the people rant, wind down, and if it sounded like they weren’t doing much better by the time Barry had done whatever was in his power, he explained… but usually, the people thanked him and hung up before he could get around to confessing that he was, in fact, just a forensic scientist with an unfortunate phone number.

But never, to this day, had he ever heard the voice from those phone calls out in the streets.

The tall man in front of him was holding his phone against his right ear with his left hand, then switched, his other hand rooting around in his pockets for change, because it would soon be his turn to order.

“Yes, Lisa - no, I don’t think you should wear- no. Definitely not. Why are you even calling me?” he was saying, and his voice had a little sardonic lilt to it. It had not been there yesterday - he’d sounded soft, almost broken as he spoke about the anniversary of his mother’s death, about his father in jail, about his sister who he worried about… for a while, Barry’s heart stopped at the similarities between their lives. And then, the guy took a sharp breath and spoke more about his father, about the kind of childhood he and his sister had, the bruises, the screams, the constant terror. He said that his father was due to be released from prison soon, and how he didn’t know what would happen, if the man would try to find him or his sister. He’d sounded terrified, and Barry had been so close to telling him to call the actual hotline… but then he swallowed, so loudly that Barry could hear it on the other end of the phone, and thanked Barry for his help.

“Whoever this is… thank you,” he said and he sounded better, as if he’d flipped a switch, as if he’d just needed to pour out the excess of all those overflowing feelings so he would have room to take more, of everything. “I needed this. I can’t tell my sister any of it, she deserves to be free of all this shit. Thanks again.”

Then he hung up, just as Barry’s alarm clock switched to 4:53.

And now, he was standing in front of Barry at Jitters and he was tall and gorgeous and… laughing into his phone softly, talking to his sister like nothing was wrong, like he had not spent so much time, just a couple of hours ago, venting to a stranger about anxiety and depression and childhood traumas he always swept under the rug and could never quite overcome.

Barry was reaching out before he could stop himself. This was a horrible idea - the worst he ever had, probably. And he could not prevent his hand from touching the man’s elbow.

He visibly tensed under Barry’s touch, but he mumbled ‘call you later’ to the phone and turned to Barry with a raised eyebrow. They were the same height, more or less, but he felt so much larger. Maybe it was in a way he carried himself, with easy confidence, like he knew exactly how much space he took up and refused to apologize for it. 

“Can I  _help_  you?”

  
“Uh… hey. I think… we talked last night? Um. On the phone.”

The dark blue coat reflected in his eyes when they went wide. Barry could read panic in his face and he felt like an idiot - however, there was no way but forward now.

“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna tell anyone. Anything. I mean I don’t even know your name, I just recognized your voice and-”

“Pretty sure those hotlines are supposed to be anonymous, kid,” the man sneered. God, he was perfect, even with that cruel, sarcastic twist to his mouth. Barry winced and felt his cheeks heat up.

“I… uh. Yeah. I guess?”

“You guess,” the man repeated. More irony - had Barry not heard him so vulnerable just hours ago, he would’ve believed all the bristles and spikes in his armor. “Then  _I_   _guess_ you’re shit at your job, kid.”

“That’s… I’m actually a forensic scientist,” Barry shrugged, offering a sheepish smile. “You kinda got the wrong number?”

He could see the moment the implications dawned on the man. His whole face went hard, unreadable, and the pocket of his coat where his hand was still hidden bulged, as if he’d clenched his fist.

“You didn’t think to let me know earlier?”

He sounded pissed, and he stepped into Barry’s space, glowering. That was the first moment Barry realized he had maybe an inch on the guy.

Not that it would help him if the man decided to beat the crap out of him; Barry was all wiry limbs and very basic self-defense training. Judging by the way the guy’s arms strained in the confines of his coat, it was safe to assume that if this man threw a punch, Barry would feel it. For days.

“You sounded like you needed to talk!” he yelped and stepped back - he stumbled into a table and heard cups clinking and people hissing, and he turned to apologize, which let his elbow fly into the face of the unfortunate woman sitting right behind him.

A strong hand curled around his bicep and pulled him close to a very solid, very warm chest. 

The guy’s eyes were even more ridiculously blue up close.

“You’re a walking disaster, aren’t you,” he sighed, and Barry mentally groaned. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighed in defeat. “For everything. I just… I didn’t want you to go and… you know. Hurt yourself.”

The man frowned. 

“I wasn’t suicidal, kid, for fuck’s sake… I just needed to unload.”

“Forgive my mistake - you  _did_  call suicide prevention,” Barry huffed. “Well. Tried to.”

The guy stared at him for a few seconds, then simply rolled his navy eyes (how did anyone even  _have_  navy eyes, seriously) and pulled Barry out of the coffee-shop by the elbow.

“Hey! I said I’m sorry! No need to get all violent, okay?” Barry yelped, and the guy let him go once they were outside.

And then laughed at him.

The sound was throaty and raw and defeated, and Barry couldn’t help when his mouth quirked up to a smile in response.

“I’m really sorry,” he repeated. “Can I buy you apology coffee?”

Blue-Eyes blinked and then laughed again: “So first you lie about being a counselor, and now you’re asking a seriously damaged guy out? Is that why you pretend to be a hotline? Does that get you off?”

“NO!” Barry yelled in horror, before he realized the guy was still smiling, and he probably wouldn’t be if he truly believed Barry was some sort of a pervert who actually  _wanted_  to hear people be miserable. 

“Is that ‘no, I’m not asking you out’ or ‘no, I don’t actually get off on being called in the middle of the night about strangers’ issues’?”

“The latter,” Barry snorted, then blushed bright red and hastily added: “The former, too. I mean. Um. I did offer coffee, but…”

“How about we find another coffee shop while you figure that out? I don’t think they’ll let you come back to this one anytime soon, and I’ve got thirty-seven minutes before I need to be someplace else.”

“…okay.”


	8. 'there's only so many times you can get up to pee at night before you should see a doctor about it'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by gemenice :D

Barry groans and rolls over, but it’s no use - he’s already wide awake, courtesy of mattress shifting, soft steps padding out of the room and across the hall, and the brief flare of the bathroom light through the open door, right into Barry’s previously sleeping face. He glances at the clock blearily, and the light blue digits show him 5:02. 

The toilet flushes and there’s the sound of running water briefly, and then the steps are coming back. The bed dips under new weight, and Barry mumbles, his mouth almost pressed into his pillow.

“Len?”

“Go to sleep.”

“This is the fifth time tonight, you realize that, don’t you.”

“Go to sleep, Barry, seriously,” Len growls and buries himself under the covers, pulling them almost over his head.

“There’s only so many times you can go at night before you need to go see a doctor about it.”

“Barry, shut up, please.”

“Caitlin could-”

“If Dr. Snow hears anything about this, I swear to God I’m never coming back to this bed, do you understand?!”

“Will you come back to the kitchen table, the sofa, the various walls and the shower?”

“Barry,” Len almost whines. “Go. To sleep.  _Please_.”

“You know, it’s nothing to be ashamed about. At your age-”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Barry, for the fifth time, it’s not my prostate, it’s a reaction to being cold, and you know this,  _you_  were the one to google that the first time it happened, so can you  _drop_  it?!”

Barry has a hard time falling asleep again - mostly because he’s too busy stifling his giggles into his pillow.


	9. 'Len finds out Barry has a crush on him' AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from suddensociopath on tumblr :) "How about cold discovering that barry finds him atractive and trying to use it as a weakness abd it backfires? Or team flash telling barry that cold obviously has the hots for him so he kisses len in battle to win ground"
> 
> I went with Option No. 1 :)

“This has to stop,” Barry announces as he purposefully strides into  _Saints & Sinners_. Len knows the kid’s there before Barry even opens his mouth - he’s always been aware of the speedster in ways he’s rarely aware of others. He usually knows when someone’s behind him, a skill drilled into him by years of having to protect himself (and Lisa) from a man who could be terrifyingly light on his feet even dead-drunk and itching for a fight. But he’s rarely so certain _who_  it is, lurking out of his field of vision - somehow, that’s never an issue with Barry. 

He turns, slowly for the right effect, his elbows propped up on the bar behind him and a beer bottle dangling from his fingers. 

“Care to explain, Barry?” Len smirks around the kid’s name, purrs it like the provocation it’s meant to be. Barry’s face goes tight, unhappy, and Len’s insides engage in that well-known battle where his heart is aching to reach out and smooth his thumb over the downturned corners of the kid’s mouth… and the vindictive, nasty part of Len’s mind cackles at how easy it is to get to the kid’s head with just a few words. 

“You know what I mean,” Barry huffs and takes a step closer, reluctantly, like there’s a force keeping him back and another one pushing him forward. He collapses against the bar, hunched over it with his elbows on top of the stained surface, hands clasped together like he needs protection from Len. Which is in itself ridiculous - the kid must see that Len’s unarmed at the moment, even though he’s always been horrible at observing his surroundings. Which means that the protection he seeks in tight, closed-off body language is not physical at all.

Len raises an eyebrow. He’s pretty sure he does know what Barry has come to complain about, all things considered, but he could never resist pushing all the buttons that Barry keeps openly on display for anyone who can read him. “Wouldn’t ask if I did.”

Heat rises to Barry’s cheeks, stains the pale skin red. 

“The… things you say. And do.”

Len takes a sip from his beer and turns his head to the speedster, smirking again.  
  
“That’s a little too general. Try again.”

Barry lets his head hang for a moment and takes a deep breath - he seems to steel himself, because when he raises his eyes to meet Len’s gaze, he’s frowning with that kind of determination that Len’s only seen in his face when the situation in a battle means that Barry might save the day but might not come out of it alive.

“The flirting,” Barry blurts, and his throat works as he swallows. Len’s mesmerized by the sight. “The flirty looks, the innuendos, it’s got to stop.”  
  
“Thought you enjoyed it,” Len shrugs - he did, and he still does, if the speedster’s blush is any indication. He knows nothing will ever come out of it, because Barry’s too much of a goody-two-shoes to ever start a thing with someone like Len, but it’s fun to tease him, to see him all flustered and out of breath, to know that he’s not capable of concentrating on anything fully when Len is around.

“Well, I don’t,” Barry grumbles and pushes away from the bar. “Stop it,” he adds and stalks out before Len can say anything - there’s a spark of lightning that he spots through the window when Barry walks out, and Len knows that the kid must’ve sped away as fast as he could. 

He still thinks that Barry secretly enjoys it, a little bit, maybe in a dark corner of his mind that doesn’t think in black and white, but Barry’s request still leaves a sour taste in Len’s mouth.  
  
He finishes his beer and sets it on the bar, then sticks his hands in his pockets as he walks out. He won’t be enjoying the calm evening at his favorite dive anymore - especially not when the jukebox switches to ‘Cold as Ice’ and he’s reminded of the time Barry sought him out for the first time.

If Len were capable of honesty, he’d have to admit that this thing where he teases the kid until he’s annoyed and off-balance got out of control a while back. It was supposed to be fun; one day, the speedster was too preoccupied staring at his ass to avert his eyes in time, and Len couldn’t let that kind of blackmail material go unnoticed. So he dropped hints, here and there, leered and teased and suggested, and Barry always got so beautifully upset that Len just wanted to push him into the nearest wall and ravage him. He never wanted it bad enough to risk a super-sonic punch to the face, but he’s been thinking about it with increasing frequency and intensity in the past weeks, and maybe, just maybe, he’s upped the flirting game a little too much without even noticing.

He breathes in the not-quite-fresh air of the ugly side of the city when he walks out and sighs. They could be good together - in bed, at least, with Barry’s fiery passion for everything he does. He closes his eyes, just for a moment-

-and can’t quite hold back a yelp when something grabs his jacket and he’s pushed into the rough bricks in a back alley in a split second. He lashes out instinctively, but before his fist can connect, his body goes slack when he realizes he knows that pair of hazel eyes, burning holes into him from just a couple inches away.

“I hate you,” Barry growls, and then he slams their lips together, rough and fast and bordering on painful; but when Len sighs in response and lets his mouth fall open to the speedster’s attack, the tension drains out of Barry’s body and he lets Len push his fingers into Barry’s messy hair. The speedster is surprisingly good at this - with his fumbling, blushing nerdiness, Len would have expected something messier, sloppier, more enthusiasm than finesse. But Barry’s lips slot perfectly against his, tongue insistent and domineering in Len’s mouth, an accusation and a plea, and Len is reluctant to let him go, but… 

“I think your shoe’s on fire,” he murmurs as he pulls just half an inch away, and it’s Barry who yelps now, stomping around until his sneaker is successfully put out. A laugh bubbles up in Len’s chest and he lets it out, feeling weirdly giddy - Barry shoots him a dirty look.

“It’s not funny,” he huffs and crowds into Len’s space, arms framing Len’s head. He wouldn’t have pegged the kid for the dominant type, but he can roll with it - as long as there’s  _something_ to roll  _with_. He doesn’t remember wanting someone this much in a long time, and now that he knows what Barry’s exasperation tastes like in a kiss, he’s not gonna let it slip away so easily.

“My place or yours?” he licks his lips and smirks when the speedster’s eyes hungrily follow the motion. 

“Stop teasing me when we’re working,” Barry growls, and then leans in again. Len wonders if the speedster truly wants to do this in a back alley behind a dive bar, but he finds that he honestly doesn’t give a crap.


	10. 'just came for my dose of hugs and kisses'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by dragdragdragon on tumblr :) "I'm here for my daily fix of hugs and kisses."

Len is reading when Barry crashes through the door. Well. ‘Crashes’ might be a bit too strong - he drags his feet like a zombie and groans accordingly as he kicks the door shut behind him. He slams his shoulder into a wall, trying to get his sneakers off; he ends up nearly keeling over as he stumbles over the shoelaces. He drops his jacket on the floor, and Len raises a disapproving eyebrow at the mess - he knows Barry’s not the tidiest person on Earth, he’s known that for seven months, ever since they moved in together, but he still can’t help but feel mildly irritated when the goddamn coat hanger is about four feet from where Barry just lets gravity defeat his clothes.  
  
When he comes closer, Len realizes why Barry got half-naked by the door; he screws up his nose at the whiff of sewers that washes over him when Barry drops on the couch; he doesn’t have the heart to suggest a shower, though, when the speedster basically collapses across Len’s lap and buries his face in Len’s chest. His long, pale arms snake around Len’s waist and he takes a deep breath - it tickles, with Barry’s mouth so close to Len’s nipple, but he manages not to squirm.

He runs his fingers over his boyfriend’s messy (sticky, ew) hair and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small smile.

“Tough day, Scarlet?”

Barry mutters something unintelligible into his breastbone. Len chuckles.

“Didn’t quite get that, baby. What’s wrong?”

“…not over,” Barry groans again and nuzzles up, the cold tip of his nose dragging up Len’s chest until it reaches skin, runs over Len’s collarbone and makes him shiver, before the speedster struggles the last couple inches up and their mouths slide together in that perfect alignment Len’s always admired. He’s had his share of partners over the years, but he doesn’t remember ever feeling like this, like he just  _fits_  with someone, effortlessly and perfectly like pieces of a puzzle carefully cut and carved to fall into each other’s curves and hollows.

He sets his book down, runs a hand up Barry’s naked back, over the moles he knows are there even when they’re too small for him to feel them under his touch.

“Not over?” he repeats, when Barry pulls back to settle into the crook of his neck, just breathing, soaking up the closeness. Barry nods, and his hair tickles along Len’s jawline.

“Yeah. Gotta go back to STAR Labs. Just came in for my daily dose of hugs and kisses,” he grumbles - he sounds sleepy, but Len knows that it’s probably just his metabolism running on fumes.

“And a shower,” Barry adds, in that tone that indicates his nose is wrinkled in disgust at himself. It makes Len laugh, and Barry sighs contently, his lashes dragging across Len’s neck as his eyes flutter closed.

Len holds him like that for a couple of minutes, close to his chest with their arms wrapped around each other, the sound of their heartbeats mingling under his skin until they’re indiscernible. Then, he twists a little to press a kiss into Barry’s temple. He’s stinky and sticky and gross and has probably spent the day surrounded by the city’s waste, but Len doesn’t care. He can always brush his teeth - he can’t always have these quiet moments, not with their lifestyles clashing and colliding all the time.

“Why don’t you go get the sewers out of your hair, and I’ll make you something to eat,” he offers, and Barry blinks up a dazed smile at him. He should probably get some rest, but Len’s given up on fighting about proper rest a while ago. Barry would just storm off anyway, and he’d get into a fight while still mad at Len… it’s not worth it. Len can provide sustenance, a nutritious, balanced meal that will probably do Barry more good in the long run than the awful calorie bars he’s been living on before, or the disgusting fast food shit he’s so fond of. It’s a compromise that makes him keep his mouth shut about sleep - and he has a feeling that the next time Barry comes home, he definitely won’t be using their bed just to  _rest_.

“I love you,” Barry sighs, and Len chuckles - Barry always says that when Len cooks, sighs it into Len’s soups and groans it over Len’s pasta, and Len wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.

“Off you go, Sewer Boy,” he swats at Barry’s hip playfully, and gets a messy, sloppy, wet kiss for his trouble. It  _tastes_ a bit like waste, and Len’s so gone on this kid that he doesn’t even mind - just watches Barry drag himself towards the bathroom and then gets up to figure out how long he can persuade Barry to stay - and thus, how much time does he have to cook.


	11. college AU 'Your stray red item turned my whites pink.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by anon on tumblr :) “Your stray red item turned my whites pink.” & “You found me crying on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night surrounded by a shattered jelly jar.”

Len has spent some serious time tracking the asshole who somehow always left a red sock or a red pair of underwear in the washer. The first time it happened, he was willing to believe it was a coincidence. The second time, he just thought he was unlucky like that… the third time, he started wondering just how many people could both own  _and_  forget their fucking red laundry all the damn time.

It was the fourth time that was the last drop in the sea of Len’s (red-tinted) anger. So, wearing his newly pink underwear and socks, together with his greyish-pink sweats and a purplish shirt that used to be blue, he vindictively put a tracker in the goddamn red sock (the same one as the first time, which led Len to believe it was the SAME guy all the time). He left the bugged sock it on the washer, obsessively checking the GPS signal to figure out what kind of an asshole could have that many red clothes - and he doesn’t even care that the signal finally moves on a Saturday night. 

He’s just chilling with Mick and a few other friends, but his mission to rid the world of the asshole who couldn’t check the stupid washer is holy and righteous and important for the world, no matter how many times Mark tells him that he’s acting crazy. MARK isn’t the one whose wardrobe’s now almost fully red-stained.

Len stalks back to their dorms, following the signal until he comes up to a door - interestingly, it’s the communal kitchen on the first floor instead of someone’s room. He strides in, mouth already opening to release the flood of pure rage that’s been bubbling in his chest ever since he first found his load of laundry stained pink… but then he hears the first sob, and he stops in his tracks.

There’s a guy in the kitchen - the floor is covered in red, and Len’s heart misses a beat before he realizes that it’s not blood, just… jelly…? What the fuck - is this guy’s life mission to stain the whole world red or what?! 

He’s sitting on the floor, back against the fridge and his feet sprawled through the mess. Len sidesteps the shards from the jar and frowns, still not completely sure if all that red is just food or some blood has splattered around as well. With so much glass, the guy could’ve easily cut himself.

He looks like a puppy - and a freshman. Big brown eyes, filled with tears, an adorable face dotted with moles, a mop of messy brown hair. The offending bugged red sock is peeking out of the pocket of his university sweats, and Len wants to kill him for that, but… there’s something about his expression that makes Len crouch next to him and stare instead of yelling about his pink underwear.

“Hey. You okay?”

The kid sobs and sniffs, but gives a shaky nod, so Len… yeah. No. He would _like_  to take that as a sign that the guy’s really alright, he would definitely like to snarl at him to be careful with his toxic red laundry… but he can’t. There’s something he just can’t stand about the sight of someone crying alone on the kitchen floor on a Saturday night… maybe it strikes a little too close to home, but Len’s not gonna leave this moron here.

“Get up,” he mumbles, and the guy obeys, though his movements remind Len of a rag doll. He grabs the roll of paper towels from the counter and cleans up the worst mess, while the kid just stands there and obviously tries not to sob - but fails.

“What’s your name?” Len tries as he drops the soggy towels in the trash and hands a fresh one to the kid so he can wipe his face. 

“Barry,” the answer comes right before the guy blows his nose. Fuck - why did he have to be so pitiful?! Len really wanted to scream at the person responsible for his pink… everything. But even he’s not so much of an asshole that he would yell at a very obviously distressed person.

“I’m Len,” he replies, to establish some sort of basic trust, and then shrugs: “Care to tell me what’s this about?”

“I’m sorry,” Barry mumbles. “I didn’t mean to drop it, it just happened.”

His eyes fill with tears again, and Len sighs, rubbing at his face. He ends up smearing some jelly over his forehead, which is just fucking great.

“You’re not crying just because of the jelly, are you, kid.”

Barry bites his lip - it would be quite an enticing sight if his nose wasn’t running a little. 

“No.”

“Okay,” Len more asks than says, raising an eyebrow. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Barry gives him a long look and then shakes his head. 

“Not… really.”

Awkward silence fills the tiny kitchen and Len’s ready to leave. There’s beer at Mick’s place, and people he actually gives a damn about, not a random freshman who ruined his clothes… but heck, when Barry looks at him with those huge, watery eyes, Len is rooted to the spot instantly.

“Do you want to… um… watch, like, a movie? I was about to make myself a sandwich, so… I could make one for you…? And we could watch together. Or play something?”

His voice is all uncertain and wobbly, and Len’s not sure if that blush staining his cheeks is embarrassment or just the residue of crying, but shiiit… he’s lost. Barry’s kind of adorable, and Len remembers how it feels, not wanting to be alone more than anything in the world, accepting company in whichever form in order not to be forced to deal with certain memories or feelings or skeletons jumping out of one’s closet.

He can’t leave this kid alone, not tonight.

“Sure,” he shrugs and waves at the door. “Just don’t drop anything on the floor again, please.”

He watches the kid get a new jar of jelly - Barry hands it to him with a sheepish smile and Len opens it for him.

“Um… Len? Can I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you wearing so much pink?”

Len mentally counts to ten and hands the opened jar back to the kid.

“I like it. Now shut up and focus, I’m not cleaning up after you twice in one night.”

Trouble is, he has a feeling he totally would.


	12. "I told you I'd marry you if you did something crazy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by wacheypena on tumblr :) “I jokingly told you that the only way I’d marry you was if you did this weird outlandish thing, and you actually did it, and I’m kind of charmed.”

“Marry me,” Len mumbles into his shoulder while they’re both sweaty and sated and a little breathless. Barry laughs and pushes at Len’s arm to get him to roll off, and swings his feet off the bed, shaking his head.

“That’s it? Considering your penchant for theatrics, I would’ve expected something more with a proposal,” he grins and walks to the bathroom. He doesn’t take it seriously, even though the question make his stomach clench, warm and nervous and strange; Len always rides the post-coital high hard and Barry knows better than to ascribe much meaning to it. 

The next morning, Barry wakes up to the awful noise of an emergency text from Cisco. He vaguely registers that Len’s not in bed anymore as he grabs the phone and blearily blinks at the screen.

_TURN ON YOUR TV!!!!!!ASAP!!!!_

That’s a lot of exclamation marks, Barry thinks as he grabs the remote and points it at the opposite wall. It was Len’s idea, to have the TV in the bedroom so they could watch movies and fall asleep without the terrible cricks in their necks the next morning. Barry teased him for being such an old man then… but he’s kind of grateful he doesn’t have to get up just yet.

The first channel he tries is the local news station, because he’s pretty sure Cisco wouldn’t text him about the birth of a baby elephant on Animal Network - and yes, there it is. An aerial view of Central’s shore, revealing giant ice chunks along the beach, maybe ten feet tall by the looks of it… Barry sighs and wonders if that’s why Len is gone. There’s absolutely no reason why he should’ve frozen the BEACH, because it’s not like there were any diamonds just washing up on the shore-

-the network’s helicopter flies lower, the angle of the camera changes, and Barry’s eyes widen.

It’s not just ice. Well, it is, but instead of random giant lumps, they’re… letters. 

Spelling ‘MARRY ME’. 

“Hooooly shit,” Barry breathes out, incapable of moving or looking away. What the-

“Flashy enough?” 

Len’s amused voice carries to him and Barry finally tears his eyes from the TV screen, only to find the man leaning against the doorway, an amused smirk on his face. All Barry can think is ‘ _he was serious last night?!’_

His heart skips a beat when Len crosses the distance and sits on the bed, still smiling. Without another word, he produces a small velvet box and Barry’s heart picks up the pace when Len opens it to reveal a simple ring of intertwined white and yellow gold. 

“Please, tell me you didn’t steal that,” he sighs, and Len laughs as he reaches for Barry’s hand.

“I’m gonna take that as a ‘yes’ _.”_


	13. 'Len using 'antiquities' as a cover for a job'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by flightofmorning on tumblr :) "how about Len using the "antiquities" cover for a job and Barry accidentally or purposefully foiling the heist?"
> 
> (I promise this fifth one the last one I'll add today :D I just wanted to have the ficlets here on AO3, for people who don't have tumblr or don't want to read there <3)

Barry sighs and tugs at his tie. He hates these formal functions, trying to mingle with rich people while pretending he’s not a complete fish out of water in this sea of silk, diamonds and condescension. Unfortunately for him, there have been rumors of a meta hitting high-profile parties and Barry had to investigate. With a lot of luck and charm, Iris managed to secure an invitation as a reporter and ignored Barry’s protests that she was putting herself in danger. There was really no other way of getting invited to an event like this anyway, so even if Barry doesn’t like it, here they are, looking sharp and scanning the crowd for potential danger.  
  
Well. Iris is looking sharp - and beautiful. Barry is probably mostly looking uncomfortable and awkward as he twirls around his glass of champagne that probably cost more than his food budget for a week. And that’s saying something, coming from someone with super-fast metabolism.

He looks around again and barely notices that someone comes to talk to Iris, talking about introductions to important people. Barry isn’t here to network, so he doesn’t turn until he feels Iris’ heel discreetly hitting his ankle. He twists around-  
  
-and his heart stops. Leonard Snart is there, in a perfectly tailored tux that looks dark, dark blue, and with tiny rectangular glasses sitting on his nose. Woah. Barry would never admit it, but he kind of maybe has a thing for hot guys wearing glasses. Snart pulls off that look  _really_  well… 

except he’s still Snart. A criminal. A thief. Who smirks at Barry and looks like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, perfectly fitting in among the top ten thousand (or maybe just top two hundred) of Central City.

Before Barry can blurt out anything (such as ‘everyone keep calm and store your jewelry in the nearest safe’), the elderly gentleman accompanying Snart waves his hand towards the criminal and smiles at Iris:

“Allow me to introduce Mr. Leopold Frost - he deals in antiquities and has graciously offered his services for the upcoming auction.”

Iris politely shakes ‘Mr. Frost’s’ hand and Barry feels like he’s going to have a heart attack.

“How very generous,” he mumbles. Snart has the gall to smirk again, while Iris gives him a quizzical look. That’s right - Barry remembers she doesn’t really know what ‘Captain Cold’ looks like, not well enough to recognize him when he’s playing up his charm and wearing glasses. 

“Actually,” he finds himself saying next, interrupting the older guy who must be someone influential but Barry doesn’t care, “I have some…  _antiquities_  I’d like to discuss with Mr. Frost.”

He doesn’t drag Snart away only because the guy gives in rather easily to the tug of Barry’s hand on his elbow. They make it to the gardens, away from the noise of the party, and Barry turns to glare furiously at the criminal when they’re sufficiently hidden among the shrubbery.  
  
“What are you doing here?!” he hisses, and Snart raises an eyebrow. For some reason, it’s even more infuriating over the rim of his glasses.

“Business.”

“What kind of business?!” Barry demands. Snart grins.

“None of yours…  _Flash_.”

“I swear to God, if you start shooting people-”

“You’ll do what exactly?” Snart asks sweetly, and Barry’s fists tighten at his sides.

“I’ll stop you. Like I’ve stopped you before, remember? Also what kind of a name is Leopold Frost?! How did you even get people to believe you’re in antiquities?!”

“In a way, I am,” Snart shrugs - he doesn’t look upset to see Barry here, just a bit amused at his anger, and it irks Barry even more. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to convince people when there’s no record of you anywhere, kid.”

“Don’t you dare start anything tonight, I’m serious! I’m tracking meta attacks, if you mess this up, innocent people will get hurt, or die, and that’s not the kind of deal we have.”

“No. Our deal was about me and my crew - I can’t be held responsible for the actions of anyone else.”

Barry frowns. Snart is right, but it would be annoying - and counterproductive - to admit that, so he huffs:

“You can, if you actively mess with me trying to save people.”

Snart quirks an eyebrow again, and Barry hates that he finds it attractive even through the anger clouding his mind.

“Hmm. How about we strike a new deal, then?” 

Barry’s eyes narrow in suspicion at that. “What sort of a deal?”

“I don’t rob this place tonight… if you dance with me.”

That makes Barry’s jaw drop to the artfully arranged cobblestones under his feet.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Deal or no deal, kid, your call.”

With a put-upon sigh, Barry nods. He’s done worse things to protect the innocent of Central City… he can definitely get through the humiliation of ballroom dancing with a criminal.

“Fine,” he lets out through gritted teeth and lets Snart lead him back inside.

….

Of course, Snart blackmails him into spending half an hour twirling around to the soft sounds of waltz. (”I didn’t say  _one_  dance, Barry - and the longer you keep me occupied, the lower the chance of me going back on our deal, don’t you think?”)  
  
It’s only when the elderly gentleman comes up to tap Snart on the shoulder that Barry’s let go. If he misses the warm hand pressed to the small of his back, he will take that shameful secret to his grave.

“Ready to show me what you got, Mr. Frost?” the old man smiles. “You mentioned some 18th century plates?”

Barry gapes and stares at Snart in pure horror as it dawns on him that he’s just been expertly played by the asshole. Not that it surprises him, but the annoyance bubbles up in his chest nonetheless.

“You’re here to  _sell_?!”

“You should get a better grasp on how dealing in antiquities works, Mr. Allen,” the asshole claims with a smug smile - and then leans over to brush his lips against Barry’s cheek.

“Thank you for the dance.”

He follows the old guy through the crowd and Barry just blinks after him, wondering if the day will ever come when Leonard Snart stops turning everything into a game.


	14. Len the asshole plowman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon-turned-fic on request by thumb3l1n4 on tumblr :)

Iris is laughing so hard she’s not even making noises anymore.

“It’s not funny,” Barry frowns – his eyebrows are probably the only part of him that’s not sore now, and that’s only because he’s had time to defrost for a couple of hours. His best friend’s inappropriate amusement at his suffering does not make his day any better.

  
“It is,” Iris wheezes after a couple of minutes, after she’s done carefully dabbing at the tears running from her eyes, trying not to ruin her eyeliner. “You have a nemesis. You’re a forensic scientist and you have a  _nemesis_.”

Barry sighs – he expected her to be understanding and sympathetic, but now he can see that was clearly a mistake on his part.

“The guy’s Satan himself,” he huffs, and Iris bursts into another round of stomach-clutching giggles.

  
“He drives a snow plow, Barry,” she tries to be rational, but her snickering is kinda ruining the effect. Barry scowls.

  
“He’s on a quest to drive me crazy,” he grumbles and turns back to his work when Iris starts laughing again. He’s not gonna get any sympathy from her, so he better get some work done… even though his hands are shaking from the two weeks of shoveling snow every day for hours.

…………………..

He moved into the house at the end of November, when snow was still but a distant promise in the frosty morning air. Now it’s nearly Christmas, and Barry wants to cry every morning. Some days, he will shovel about five tons of snow out of his driveway, go put the shovel back in the garage and change his sweat-soaked shirt for work-appropriate attire, only to find that the asshole has paraded down the street with the snow plow again, rendering all of Barry’s efforts useless. He doesn’t cry (anymore), but his hands are so sore he’s dropped more than one test tube in the past week. There are blisters lining the insides of his palms, and his back is in constant pain, so much that he has to seriously consider whether or not whatever he dropped is worth picking up from the ground.

He’s miserable, and he hates himself with a passion for entertaining the crazy idea of buying a house. He can’t help it – his childhood home went up for sale and Barry jumped at the opportunity, but now, he wonders if this isn’t the universe telling him that he should have let his past go instead of investing money in this nostalgic hellhole.

And of course, this year has to be that one special year in a decade when Central actually gets snow. Not just the cute two-inch taste of what white Christmas might look like – no, this winter goes all out on heavy clusters of snowflakes piling up knee-high every night.

Barry tries everything. He gets up at five in the morning just so that he can clean his driveway and get out of the way before the snow plow has a chance to pass; the only thing that accomplishes is that he has more than enough spare time to shovel the snow for the second time that morning.

He tries leaving his car in the street then, but he never does that the second time, after he has to spend two hours digging his goddamn car out of the pile of that white crap – it looks very much like someone went to the trouble of pushing all the snow from the road up to  _Barry’s_  car, and it makes him feel murderous. He tries to go by bus, in the end, but the walk to a bus stop that would have taken half an hour in normal weather takes nearly a hour and a half when he has to wade through thirty inches of snow, and he arrives at the precinct exhausted and wet and no better off than he would have been if he gave in and shoveled the driveway.

He’s seriously considering moving to Florida one morning, when he sees that the weather forecast promising ten fresh inches of snow overnight was wrong, and twenty fucking inches is waiting for him in front of the door, except at the edge of his driveway where the piles are about as tall as an average person. Florida sounds really nice, Barry thinks as he sucks it up and picks up the shovel, walking out… just to see the Satan himself.

Well, Satan’s vehicle, to be precise – the stupid snow plow is there, parked in the middle of the road just a few steps away from Barry’s property, and he can’t help but gape for a few seconds. It’s not so much the plow that shocks him as the fact that he sees a guy get out of it, circle the plow and curse loudly enough that the frozen air carries the echo to Barry’s ears.

The guy turns, and his eyes stop on Barry, who’s still standing in front of his garage with a shovel in his hand and his jaw slack. It’s like watching a horror movie happen when the guy starts a resolute stride (and somewhat wobbly with all the snow under his feet) towards Barry.

“Can I borrow the shovel? Plow’s stuck,” he calls out.

Yeah, it’s just like a horror movie – except Barry feels like he can sympathize with all the chainsaw killers. Not enough horror movies are set during winters – not enough plowmen die in horror movies, in Barry’s opinion. He clutches the handle of his shovel, so as to remind himself that burying aluminum tools in people’s brains is not an acceptable method of communication, especially not for someone who works for the CCPD.

  
“You… want my shovel?” he asks, voice raw.

The quirk of an eyebrow the plowman gives him is the last straw.

“You know how many shovels I’ve gone through in the past month?” Barry asks with eerie calm. He doesn’t really wait for an answer, either. “Three. Three shovels in the last goddamn four weeks, and you know why?! Because you’re an asshole who has to fucking wait behind the corner until I clean my driveway just so you can pile that white shit right back up! Do you know how exhausted I am?! And now you have the guts to come up here and ask me for my shovel?! The only way you’re getting it is if I KILL you with it, am I making myself clear here?! And I could probably get away with it, too, I’m a forensic scientist so I know how to-“

The guy is frowning all of a sudden: throughout Barry’s rant, he carried a sense of smug amusement around him, proving all of Barry’s suspicions that the guy is a spawn of Satan himself, if hell has frozen over indeed and devils now enjoy snowing people in as opposed to cooking their asses in giant cauldrons. But now, he’s frowning, more confusion than anger, and when he says ‘what?’, Barry goes quiet for a second. The guy would be kind of hot, if he weren’t a total jerk, but that’s not a thought he should be having right now.

  
“What do you mean ‘what’? Yes, I work for the CCPD; afraid I’ll make your life hell?” Barry snorts, and  _that_ ’s actually a good idea. “I’m going to file a complaint against you, and you’ll get fired and I’ll live in peace.”

  
His vindictive joy is short-lived as the guy lifts an eyebrow again:

  
“I won’t get fired.”

  
“Yes you will,” Barry huffs – even if he has to promise Singh to sleep in the lab for the next six months, even if he has to help Joe with spring cleaning to get him to aid this endeavor, Barry  _will_  get this jerk fired so that no one else has to suffer in the winter because this guy thinks it’s funny to pile snow in front of people’s houses.

  
“No,” the plowman shrugs. “Not a city employee. The plow’s mine.”

Barry actually gapes at that.

  
“You bought  _a snow plow_ just so you could be an asshole?!”

The scowl and the silence are an answer enough, and Barry doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry. He feels like he’d be amused if he saw this in a movie, or read it in a book, but having to shovel the results of someone’s sociopathic behavior has not been fun in real life.

The guy rubs the back of his neck and eyes Barry’s shovel, as if he’s calculating the probability of being attacked with it. “Take it you’re not Mr. Miller.”

“What?” It’s Barry’s turn for raised eyebrows now. “Uh, no, I’m Barry. Allen. Bought this house last month- wait. Did you  _actually_ do this on purpose?!”

While it’s nice to be reassured that he wasn’t going mad when he felt like he was being personally targeted here, it’s not like Barry wholeheartedly  _believed_ it was happening. He whined about it, yes, complained and cursed and groaned, but he wouldn’t have thought someone would be insane enough to purchase an expensive piece of heavy machinery solely to fuck with a hated neighbor.

“Are you crazy?” he groans, and the plowman sighs:

  
“Mr. Miller  _did_  work for the city. I got tired of shoveling all that snow last year… buying the plow and figuring out where he lived wasn’t so hard.”

He adds something in a mutter, something that sounds suspiciously like ‘gotta track him down again now, dammit’ – Barry SO doesn’t want to know. He grips the shovel again, so hard his knuckles go white.

  
“Well now you know I’m not the guy you’re looking for, you can take your plow and fuck off, I have work to do,” he says and resolutely steps towards the snow- but the shovel is plucked out of his hands and Barry spins around with a scowl:

  
“Didn’t you hear me?! Go away! And stop piling this shit in front of my house!”

The guy stalks away with Barry’s shovel without a word. Barry gapes for good five minutes, because he can’t believe this asshole, who is just using Barry’s only shovel to get his damn plow out of the snow, because of course he’s awful at his not-really-a-job and got the vehicle stuck.

Afterwards, he cleans Barry’s driveway with a few turns of the plow and gives Barry a small wave as he drives away. Barry has to struggle to hold on to his hatred.

It nearly works. Except the next morning, his driveway is perfectly clean. Barry tries hard not to think about that when he pulls his car out of the garage and sees the neighbors shoveling snow. But then it happens again, and again – and by the fourth morning, Barry can’t honestly stay mad. Yeah, it cost him a month of pain, but his sore muscles are better now and he can’t blame the guy for a honest mistake (even if he totally tries, and the guy’s batshit crazy for doing this kind of crap in the first place).

Barry cracks open the front door of his house and huddles tighter into his fluffy bathrobe. It’s six in the morning, still so dark that the streetlights are the only illumination, casting the snow in shades of orange and gold as a lone figure works just ten steps from Barry’s door, chunks of iced snow flying through the air.

  
“Hey,” he says, and the guy stops – when he turns, he has the decency to look a bit sheepish. If Barry were a better person, if his hands weren’t still healing from so much shoveling, he would say ‘you don’t have to do this anymore’.

  
“Wanna come inside for some coffee?”

The guy hesitates, but in the end, he walks closer, letting the shovel rest against the wall of Barry’s house.

  
“I’m sorry,” he says as he trails snowy footprints into Barry’s hall.

“Hello, sorry, I’m Barry.”

The guy actually snorts at the awful joke, and Barry can’t suppress a grin.

  
“Hilarious. I’m Len.”

The front door closes quietly, without disturbing the quiet peace of a winter morning.


	15. 'Reading a book together'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt again :)

“Please,” Barry whines and stabs his fingers into the sensitive flesh of Len’s side. The (ex-)villain squirms, but doesn’t relinquish the book.

 

“No.”

 

“Len! I’m serious. I can read it in about two minutes.”

 

“Barbarian,” Len accuses him, but his eyes glint with amusement. “Quality literature has to be savored slowly.”

“I don’t have time for ‘slowly’, in half an hour I could be running around the city trying to stop something from blowing up!”

 

“In half an hour, I could be in 1943,” Len snaps, and okay, he has a point. Barry sighs and flops on top of the older man: Len doesn’t seem to mind the weight of a speedster crushing his lungs and only readjusts his hold so that he can still see the book over Barry’s head. His feet are up over the backrest again, which gives Barry enough room to curl his legs under Len’s butt and prevent himself from toppling to the floor. He’s a skinny guy, but the sofa is really not that big.

 

“Need I remind you that I was the one who bought it?” Barry tries wheedling again: he’s been looking forward to that book ever since they’ve gone to see the movie (he’s never seen Len as excited as when he got his soda in a BB-8 cup). And now that he finally got around to buying it and he’s got one afternoon without any metahuman emergencies, one afternoon in a long time with his time-travelling boyfriend…

 

“Need I remind you that I could have perfectly well stolen my own?” Len huffs and turns a page. Barry groans.

 

“Leeeen.”

 

“No. You always crack the spine when you speed-read.”

 

“What does it matter?! You can read it anyway!”

 

“Yes, but I like reading books that don’t lose pages because of mistreatment by speedsters.”

 

“Then read it to me,” Barry snorts – this is getting ridiculous, like any of their other fights: he should probably feel concerned that instead of fighting about dubious morals and dangerous situations, as one would expect when a superhero and a villain start dating, all their arguments are basically domestic jokes.

He doesn’t expect Len to really do what Barry is asking: he rarely does, unless there’s a very specific situation (and a state of undress). But when pages over Barry’s head are shuffled to get to the beginning and Len’s soft, melodic, velvety voice reads out the first sentence, Barry can’t help but tighten his arm over Len’s waist and smile into his boyfriend’s warm shirt.


	16. 'wearing the other's clothes'

Barry looked up from the computer screen when Cisco’s rapid explanations halted mid-sentence. It spoke volumes about the kind of life they led that Barry automatically tensed, already at the edge of tapping into his speed, but when he turned to follow Cisco’s line of sight, the only thing he saw was Len. Freshly showered, if his damp hair was any indication, and possibly a little concussed, judging by the massive bandage wrapped around his head, but otherwise… just Len.

Funny how that turned out: six months ago, Barry wouldn’t have thought he’d ever relax upon realizing it was ‘just’ Captain Cold who stepped into the cortex. But after the man saved Professor Stein’s life on one occasion, helped save Carter and Kendra on another, and seemed to be on weirdly good terms with a good half of Team Arrow (courtesy of his new drinking-and-brawling-buddy Sara Lance), it was difficult to be wary of Len the same way Barry used to be when they first met.

“Man,” Cisco snorted, “we should really start keeping more spare clothes around. One day, there’s gonna be someone who won’t fit into Barry’s sweatshirt.”

That was the moment when Barry’s eyes traveled lower – he hadn’t even realized he’d been staring at Len’s face, wondering at how much younger he seemed when he wasn’t smirking or scowling. But yes, Cisco was right: it was Barry’s sweatshirt hugging Len’s shoulders tightly, sleeves rolled up over the strong forearms.

Strangely, Barry did not feel the same pang of betrayal he’d felt when he’d seen Jay in that same shirt. There was no real animosity between him and Len anymore, and it was a startling thought, that Barry trusted Leonard Snart enough that he did not feel it as a violation of his intimate space when he saw the other man in Barry’s clothes. In some way, it even felt right: his heart swelled at the sight of Len with the white ‘S.T.A.R. Laboratories’ shining over his chest. Barry knew that it was silly to think so, that Len proved himself with much more than empty symbols in the past six months, but still he couldn’t help but feel like this was the final step, the final acknowledgement that Len belonged with them now. Maybe he was not strictly a part of Team Flash, but he was definitely a part of Team Save the World, and that made him as much theirs as anything could.

Even when he was rolling his eyes and his mouth was twisting into a sarcastic smirk.

 

“I did not realize that the other children in this kindergarten would be upset if I borrowed something,” he drawled and tugged up the edge of the shirt, moving to pull it over his head.

“Keep it,” Barry waved his hand and smiled. “I’m sure the other kids will be happy to share.”

 

Len tugged the shirt back down and walked over to Caitlin with some question or another about biological properties of whatever-the-heck it was that Len’s team was working with right now; Barry followed his steps for a couple seconds, then turned back to the computer and tried his best to ignore Cisco’s inquisitive eyes boring into the side of Barry’s skull.

 

“What?” he asked in the end, but did not look at his friend.

 

Cisco chuckled.

 

“Other kids weren’t exactly happy to share when Jay was around,” he pointed out, and Barry shrugged.

 

“He was stretching it.”

 

“I think you’re stretching something right now. Like the truth, dude.”

Barry glanced at Cisco then, and wondered if he could even begin to put this peculiar feeling into words.

 

“Jay was a stranger then. He wasn’t… one of us.”

He glanced over the cortex, to where Len was heatedly discussing something with Caitlin, both of them gesturing wildly over a heap of papers, Caitlin tapping away at her tablet then as Len paced and spoke and rubbed his hand over his short hair. Barry could see, from the corner of his vision, that Cisco was watching the scene as well.

 

“Guess you’re right,” Cisco admitted in the end, and they both turned back to their own share of research, Barry’s stomach coiling with something warm and pleasant and homely.


	17. 'one character adjusting the other's tie/jewellery'

Barry’s pretty sure that in twenty minutes, he’ll be walking into a trap.

Unfortunately, none of them found any way to avoid the gala anyway, unless they’re willing to endanger the innocent people who would bear the brunt of Zoom’s rage if Barry doesn’t show.

It only worries Barry a little that Len didn’t seem quite so much against that idea.

“You ready, man?” Cisco asks and Barry sighs, pulling his shoulders back to physically give himself some courage. He’s been getting faster and stronger day after day, but he’s still not sure it’s enough to beat Zoom – or to save everyone who will no doubt need to be saved.

 

“Wait,” Len speaks up, and Barry stops in his tracks, giving the man a curious look. Len’s been acting weird lately: weird enough that he’s become ‘Len’ instead of ‘Cold’ or ‘Snart’. Barry suspects it has something to do with the Secret Thing that Professor Stein and Jax and Ray all seem to be a part of. Barry tries not to pout about being excluded: it’s not like he’s not busy enough, with Zoom still terrorizing Central City.

Nonetheless, Barry doesn’t feel the need to step away or assume a defensive position when Len walks closer and raises his hands to Barry’s throat. It really should ring some warning bells in Barry’s head, but he doesn’t even tense when Len’s long fingers tug at his white tie. It doesn’t feel like the knot’s being adjusted much, and when Len steps back in the next second and mutters ‘there, that’s better’, Barry recognizes the gesture for the silent ‘good luck’ it is. Or maybe a silent ‘don’t die’ which is basically the same, in this situation.

He smiles a little and nods in acknowledgement, and then he’s off.

……

The air smells like fire. Dust is raining down everywhere, and Len’s suit is more grey than blue despite the fact that they’re crouching in a relatively sheltered space among the rubble. Barry coughs and regrets that his mask doesn’t cover his nose and mouth.

 

“That escalated quickly,” Len deadpans, and Barry would kind of hate Cisco for introducing Len to internet memes if it wasn’t usually so amusing to watch Captain Cold snigger at a computer screen. Barry’s mouth quirks into a small smile as he turns and reaches over: his gloved fingers are a little clumsy, but he manages to pull at Len’s half-undone tie enough that the knot settles in the general area of where it was mere minutes ago, before the annoying Meta of the Day decided to blow up half of the building.

Len’s eyes snap to Barry for a second, warm and understanding, and after an almost imperceptible nod, the cold gun makes an appearance.

……

Barry’s never been superstitious – not much, in any case. It’s not like he can’t fight without a specific ritual, not like he can’t focus on saving innocent people’s lives or the city’s future when he doesn’t jump through particular hoops beforehand.

But it still makes him feel marginally better, more grounded, whenever there’s time and occasion for a ghost of a touch running across the nearly invisible seam between the neckline and cowl of his suit, long fingers and icy blue eyes speaking the blessings that never pass Len’s lips.

He knows that Cisco and Caitlin, and by this point, even Joe and Iris and a couple of others, notice the strange, unexplained second, right before Barry rushes into whatever danger is in store for this week, before Len walks on-board of the ridiculous time machine. And if they don’t comment, Barry knows it’s probably because they all have their small good luck charms. Barry’s only happens to be a reformed villain with an unexpected tender side and a killer smirk.


	18. 'I'll protect you from a thunderstorm' (mayor!Len)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for lisellevelvet on tumblr :)

Barry always shows up before a thunderstorm.

Len has come to know the tingling at the nape of his neck, the way his hair seems to buzz with static – he’s not certain if it’s the electricity in the air or the sparks that twinge right under his skin whenever Barry’s near. It’s been there ever since that first time, a boring fundraiser for the CCPD where more funds are annually spent than raised. Cheap champagne and soggy canapés have never been Len’s idea of a good time, but this one time, his first as the Mayor, changes everything.

The sky’s overcast that day, clouds growing heavy and dark with every passing hour. Len’s given his obligatory speech, platitudes that won’t pay any bills in the end, but that’s alright, he’s got them all wrapped around his finger ever since he’s been on the Council and managed to have the old precinct rebuilt into a more fitting, modern version of what police departments should look like.  The amateurish band has just started playing when the first lightning flashes behind the windows, followed by the crack of thunder. It’s close, closer than most people are comfortable with, deafening and humbling despite the upbeat music, but Len would not have thought much of it (he trusts Fire Chief Rory and his fire prevention measures) if someone didn’t slam into his back with a panicked little yelp.

Len takes a quick step to the side to avoid splashing champagne all over his shoes, but the cheap drink still soaks his fingers. He glances up to cast a scathing look at the idiot who can’t pay attention to where he’s going, and the words catch in his throat – the guy stammers out an apology, voice high-pitched and panicky, but Len only vaguely registers he’s even talking. He’s young, twenty-five at most and probably not even that, lean in a way that’s exactly to Len’s taste – he’s gesturing wildly with fine-boned hands that slash through the air and stir Len’s imagination the way not many people ever have. Len tries to remember his name, but he must be new because Len doesn’t recall him from the previous years when he attended this event as a member of the City Council. And he would have, oh, he definitely _would_ have remembered this wonderfully quirky creature with huge hazel eyes concealed behind wire-rimmed glasses, agitated and lively and with that strange air of nervous energy surrounding him and drawing Len in, begging him to soothe and calm and care.

It will take months for Len to realize how much of a miscalculation that was - by that time he will no longer be able to stop himself from caring, from being sucked into the whirlwind that is Barry Allen, far from fragile and much more cunning than his cute face would suggest. But now, champagne dripping off Len’s fingers and eyes caught on all the shiny angles of the young man who looks like he’s stepped straight out of 1954 with his bowtie and side-parted hair, Len does not know that he’s setting a trap for himself.

“Are you alright?” he asks when he realizes the young man has gone way beyond standard apology and right into the area of panicked rambling. He freezes at Len’s question, and there’s something trapped and primal in his eyes that nudges Len to grab the kid’s arm and steer him away from the crowd and back towards the corridors with at least a bit of air to be had: with the rain viciously beating down against the windowpanes, Len doesn’t think that going outside would be advisable.

The young man stares in the general direction of Len’s lapel and takes a deep breath, and then another, and it seems to Len like he’s on the verge of hyperventilating.

  
“Y-yeah, I guess, I’m fine, don’t worry, uh, sir.”

He’s visibly trying to calm himself down and Len’s just about to ask what’s wrong when another lightning whips through the sky, bathing the corridor in an eerie flash of white light before the rumble of a thunder rolls through the air. The young man’s face tightens, wide eyes staring towards the large windows lining the corridor; Len can see a full-body shiver run through the guy and suddenly it clicks.

  
“You’re afraid of storms?” he asks, and he doesn’t like how unfocused the other’s eyes are when they shift back to Len.

  
“Wha…? No, I… it’s just lightning.”

  
He makes an attempt to laugh, but it’s weak and Len can see that no matter how many times the young man will say the words, it will never be ‘just’ lightning to him. Especially not during a night like this, when the frequency and proximity of the lightning strikes are way over average.

“What’s your name?”

Len would like to think that he only asked to divert the young man’s attention from the storm, but it would be a lie. He’s selfish enough that his interest in the kid, the need to know at least who he is, overshadows even the strong urge to help him.

“Barry Allen – I’m a CSI, just started,” he speaks, lips barely moving and his eyes still trained to the sky, flashing with light every couple of seconds. It’s truly an unusual storm, and judging by the way the kid’s trembling, he doesn’t really appreciate the uniqueness of the night.

Len brings his hand up to touch his cheek, gently making the kid – Barry – turn away from the sky.

  
“Don’t look,” he says quietly, and drinks in the sight of Barry’s long lashes fluttering down to his cheekbones. It’s such a trusting gesture, to close his eyes in front of a virtual stranger, that Len’s heart skips a beat, and by now he knows he’s in trouble: it’s been such a long time since he truly wanted someone this deeply, this shyly, since potential rejection mattered so much. He’s forgotten how all-consuming such want can be, how it blurs the lines and makes him forget what he should and should not do as the Mayor of Central City. He’s standing in the dim corridor of a renovated police building and he’s forgetting to be anything else but one man who wants another, this beautiful man so afraid of the light that maybe, just maybe, he will let Len pull him into the shadows.

There are no alcoves or convenient supporting columns in modern buildings, so Len’s forced to hold Barry’s still-frightened gaze and act as a shield from the lightning, stepping into Barry’s line of vision and trying to fill it completely, so that Barry does not look anywhere else but him. It’s working, a little, or maybe not at all and the younger man needs to be distracted some more, but when he surges up, angling for Len’s mouth, Len doesn’t even think about stopping him. He lets Barry crash into him, wraps his arms around his slender body and ignores the way the frame of his own glasses knocks against Barry’s, lenses slipping and smudging as their mouths slide together.

It’s been a habit ever since, that Barry comes crashing into Len like a tidal wave every time the sky darkens. Len thinks he’s probably got a bit of Pavlovian reaction going on by now: every time a camera’s stuck in his face and a flash of light blinds him for a second, his mouth fills with saliva tasting like memories of Barry’s skin, the weight of his cock on Len’s tongue and the sounds of his groans when Len’s teeth sink into the tender skin of his neck. He can’t help it – he can only hide it, and so he does, especially since Barry decided to marry Detective West; it wouldn’t do for the Mayor to be revealed as the side piece.

Len thought, for a while, that the spunky Detective would be the one guiding Barry through lightning, but he was stupidly, irrationally, self-destructively relieved when Barry turned up again. And so he’s spent every stormy afternoon tangled up in sweaty sheets, wrapped up in Barry’s ethereal, fleeting beauty that could be the cornerstone of Len’s life if only someone else hasn’t already built there. He knows it’s wrong, and he’s not proud of himself for allowing this to continue, but no matter how many times he tells himself (after Barry leaves) that this will be the last time he allows the younger man to tear his heart out, it never lasts. All it takes is one trembling, quicksilver smile from the man, one suggestive look, and Len’s back to gagging for him, slipping into the illusion that for a couple of minutes, everything is fine.

And then, twenty minutes into ‘fine’, Len’s skin still cooling down and his heart thundering in his chest, Barry will throw Len’s shirt at him, with a cheeky grin and a barely-apologetic shrug:

“You should get dressed. My parents will be here in fifteen minutes,” he says as he pulls his boxers back on. He doesn’t see (chooses not to see) the way Len’s mouth tightens, the way his throat closes up – he wants one day, one night, one _hour_ where he doesn’t have to think about either of them leaving. But that’s not something Mayors – Snarts – _men_ say out loud, so Len pushes himself up from the mattress and slips his shirt back on, and hopes that the forecasts promising an extremely dry summer will be wrong.


	19. 'You're really soft.'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for dragdragdragon on tumblr :)

“You’re _really_ soft,” Barry notes, his hand in Len’s lap and his eyes wide with surprise as if he hasn’t been warned previously. He’s probably a bit more drunk than one would expect from a metahuman with hyper-metabolism, no doubt courtesy of Dr. Snow’s scientific endeavors. Len briefly wonders how over-funded and bored a scientist has to be to devote time to figuring out how to get the Flash drunk; but apparently, without another imminent Armageddon hanging over their heads, superhero priorities shift quite a bit.

Not that it’s a surprising realization for Len. He’s been working with ‘heroes’ for the better part of three years, and he knows what they get up to in their spare time. It’s a possible side-effect of the weight of the world on their shoulders – they get to work hard and party harder.

Especially when a hero is getting married. Len doesn’t know why he felt that he couldn’t decline the invitation, but it’s too late to cry over spilt milk – or spilt whiskey, in this case – he’s going to have to suffer through the rest of the night in a seedy strip club where it seems impossible to look even down one’s glass without encountering a bouncy pair of breasts.

It is a rather strange venue for the stag party of two men getting hitched to each other, but since both of them have been known to enjoy female company previously, they have declared it their last opportunity to feast their eyes on lady curves without cheating on each other. Personally, Len doesn’t think those two are lacking anything in the sex department, if the sounds carrying unpleasantly loudly from their room some nights are any indication, but hey, who is he to judge.

“You’re really drunk,” Len counters, when he finds that Barry is still staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. It’s making Len squirm a little, to be honest, all that intensity and surprise, like Barry’s trying to read into this simple fact of (Len’s) life and coming up with all sorts of preposterous explanations.

  
“I didn’t think you were gay,” Barry mumbles, and Len knows he’s correct: Barry’s coming to all sorts of conclusions and Len isn’t sure if he should even bother to explain when the kid’s apparently two-and-a-half sheets to the wind. But he gives it a valiant try anyway, because he’s never been able to outright deny Barry Allen anything, no matter how annoyed it always made him to surrender.

  
“I’m not.”

“Right,” Barry snorts and takes a healthy swig from something in his glass – it’s more of a gel than a liquid and looks like it’s been pre-digested by a swamp, but it’s been successfully making Barry woozy and giggly for the past couple of hours. The kid barely even winces at the taste anymore. “I don’t think anyone not gay could stay soft after _that_ lapdance.”

It’s Len’s turn to wince at that: he wasn’t particularly impressed when Mick decided to ‘share the fun’ as he called it, and ordered a busty girl with a glittery thong to writhe all over Len’s dick for ten minutes. He can’t deny that the girl was pretty, all sleek black hair and luscious curves, but Len has never exactly enjoyed this kind of entertainment. Regardless of the gender of the dancer, actually.

He shrugs and tries to ignore the Drunk Flash at his side, but the kid’s staring at him with open curiosity and eventually it makes Len’s skin itch so much he has to turn and smirk at him:

“Apparently, I could.”

  
“Why?”

  
“What does it matter?”

“It just does,” Barry puffs sulkily and it’s far more adorable than a grown man who has saved the world numerous times should be. “You _are_ gay, right? You’re just teasing me.”

  
Len smirks and looks away – if Scarlet wants to think he’s teasing, so be it. It’s not exactly easy to explain why he’s the way he is, why he doesn’t enjoy nudity in public spaces and strangers slithering their bodies against his under the blinking neon lights. He tries to make sense of himself enough to explain it to Barry, even as the kid continues to pout about it.

“Not like anyone would mind, you know,” Barry grumbles, eyes trailing after a lovely dark-haired woman dancing about ten feet from their table. He’s blushing just from the sight, and Len has a ridiculous thought about how fast a speedster’s blood can travel, and whether it’s possible for Barry to be _that_ red in the face _and_ growing hard under the table. Judging by the way the kid’s shifting in his seat, it probably is. Suddenly, Barry’s eyes shift back towards Len and he looks worried: “If it’s a side-effect of the time-travel, I’m sure Caitlin could help-“

  
“I’ll pass,” Len snorts: it’s just like a randy twenty-something to assume that if one doesn’t pop a boner at the mere hint of nudity, there’s an underlying medical reason. Though, to be honest, even when Len used to be a randy twenty-year-old himself, his dick didn’t usually take interest in every inch of skin to be had. “Let it go, Scarlet, or I’m going to tell Mick to get _you_ one of those.”

Barry looks torn between interested and horrified; in the end, he crosses his arms over his (nicely toned and half-revealed) chest. Len licks his lips at the sight, but doesn’t comment.

  
“For real, though, I don’t get why you won’t just say that you’re gay,” he says, and something in his voice sounds miserable enough that Len’s resolve cracks a little, pushing him from teasing towards honesty. It’s not often that he feels like spilling the truth about his… peculiar tastes to anyone, and it’s even less often that it happens in a public setting, but Scarlet always had a knack for superb puppy faces and right now, he looks like his pet rabbit just died. Possibly, Len’s also had too much to drink himself, so his ability to avoid emotional confrontation is weakened – and he really wants to know why Barry seems so insistent to prove Len’s interest in men.

  
“I’m not,” he repeats, and when Barry turns hurt eyes towards him, he shrugs, “but I’m not straight either. Regardless of gender, I don’t particularly enjoy… nudity for entertainment purposes. Or, shall we say, casual acquaintances.”

Barry’s eyebrows shoot up at the confession, and Len feels his cheeks warm a little. It’s ridiculous – as a rule, he doesn’t _blush_ , he’s forty-five years old for fuck’s sake, and well on his way to be a legend of the future times. Except rules apparently mean nothing when dealing with Barry Allen.

  
“Seriously?” he blurts, and Len frowns, the old worry and hurt of being different, wrong, flaring up in his chest like a twisting knife.

“I expected more understanding from a hopeless romantic like yourself, Scarlet,” he snaps with a sneer, sarcasm his go-to defense mechanism. It slides off Barry’s skin like water off his ridiculous non-leather suit, as if he’s learned to navigate the minefield of Len’s prickly answers to look for the truth underneath. Len’s not sure if that makes him glad or terrified.

  
“No, I get it,” Barry backtracks quickly and his hand is back – well, not back in Len’s lap as such. His warm fingers cover Len’s wrist and squeeze lightly, and Len looks at the places their skin touches and wonders why he’s not pulling back, or reacting in any way. He usually does, way before he can even think about it – how many times has Scarlet touched him without Len finding it weird in the past couple of years? When has this happened? Try as he might, he can’t pinpoint the exact time when he stopped tensing under Scarlet’s careful, questioning fingers.

“I get it,” the kid repeats, looking remorseful as if he just said something insulting about Len’s freshly deceased grandmother. “I just… I didn’t expect it from you, you know?”

That warrants a perfect eyebrow arch in response, and Barry flusters even more.

  
“Not that there’s anything wrong with you!” he yelps and his fingers tighten against Len’s wrist. “Just, you’re always flirting, you know?”

  
Len sighs, but it’s more fond exasperation than true annoyance. He knows he’s weak when it comes to Barry, and it scares him most of the time, but he’s long come to accept that it will never change, no matter how much shit he pulls to re-establish his ‘don’t-care-I’m-the-bad-guy’ reputation. Barry’s not buying it – and the funny thing is, Len’s not buying it either when Scarlet’s nearby.

  
“Only with you, Red,” Len chuckles. Barry’s face turns almost purple, he blushes so hard; and then he’s sidling closer (away from the splash of beer an overeager patron has just caused next to him, but Len chooses to interpret it as ‘closer to him’ instead of ‘away from the spill’ anyway).

“Really?”

  
“Really.”  
  
“So… do you want to get out of here?” Barry mumbles, and Len can’t help but stare at him for a moment.

“I think I just said I don’t do casual acquaintances,” he retorts slowly, watching Barry’s face for clues. ‘Get out of here’ has so many different meanings that Len is afraid to interpret it as the one that would suit him best. But Barry frowns at him, purses his lips for a moment, and Len knows, even before the speedster opens his mouth again.

  
“I didn’t mean _that_. We can watch a movie, get something to eat maybe… Okay?”

The last word sounds like a plea and yeah, Len’s weak alright. He doesn’t even point out that the evening started with dinner that would feed an army (and mostly fed Barry) – he twists his hand in Barry’s grip until their fingers fall together like pieces of puzzle cut out to complement each other, and nods.  
  
“Okay.”


	20. 'I'd like it if you stayed'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ice Queen AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> farflungstars on tumblr prompted 'I'd like it if you stayed' for any pairing, and because I'm a huge pile of coldflash garbage, I picked cf XD and due to my fairy-tale AU obsession, I turned it into an 'Ice Queen' AU :D

Len knows he’s defeated the moment he can see recognition spark in Barry’s eyes. The boy looks at his sister and unconditional, absolute love takes over his features; the mirror shard that had been lodged in his eye catches in the harsh white light of the snowy castle and disappears on the icy floor. The girl shoots Len a glare, vicious and victorious.

  
“You don’t hold any power over him anymore,” she snarls, and Len has to consciously try to keep his shoulders back and his chin up. He will not show weakness, not even in the hour of his greatest loss.

“Take your brother and go,” he waves his hand: he can see that she steps back, as if she’s worried he will go back on his word. It’s a valid concern, with him – but what would be the point of using his magic against Iris, when the shard that turns the repulsive things into beautiful and vice versa is no longer in Barry’s eye, no longer guiding his heart? All Barry can see now is Len himself, the evil Ice King feared by all, the monster who will not stop at anything to get his way.

Not even at using the magic of the Devil’s mirror on an innocent young man to lure him away from his family.

  
Len turns away – he can’t watch Barry go. He will let him, but he can’t stare at his back, or it will destroy him like Iris’ tears have destroyed Len’s enchantment. He’s waiting for the sound of ice creaking under human feet, retreating, disappearing, and so he startles badly when a warm hand settles on his shoulder.

  
“Len,” the boy says, and how does his voice still sound so soft, so gentle, even without magic to make him see the Ice King as human? “Look at me.”

He cannot grant that wish: he’s weak and selfish and depraved, and if he looks at Barry now, he will use his magic to keep him from leaving.  And after the past few days that the young man spent in Len’s castle, the Ice King can no longer imagine simply enchanting the boy’s heart. No – he has to let Barry go.

  
“Leave,” he breathes, and tiny snowflakes twirl in the frosty breeze his voice creates, “your sister has won your freedom. Take it and go, both of you.”

  
“Is that what you want?” Barry asks – and could it be that he sounds hesitant? Len would’ve thought that he would show more enthusiasm: after all, he _was_ under a spell, brought here against his will, or rather, without any consideration for what his will _might_ be. Len turns around in surprise, and Barry’s warm look nearly makes him stagger on his feet.

  
“I will allow it,” he says slowly, not quite understanding why Barry’s asking. But the young man simply shakes his head, a little tired, a little disappointed:

  
“I didn’t ask that. What do you want, Len? Tell me.”

He can feel the sister’s gaze burning on him, and he wishes he could simply wave his hand and pull up an ice wall between them – but he has a feeling Barry won’t stand for the delay, not with the way he’s staring at Len as if he’s trying to see into the Ice King’s very soul. Len is not sure he has any left, but either way, he finds himself incapable of returning Barry’s look and lying.

  
“I…I suppose I would like it if you stayed,” he whispers, nearly soundless and tentative, for the first time in centuries terrified of speaking too loudly, shattering the fragile hope taking shape in his heart. Could Barry-

  
“I can’t do that.”

-no, of course he could not. How could he, when he sees Len for who – and what – he truly is? The Ice King moves to turn away, but Barry’s hand stops him again. It’s so hot, burning Len’s skin, but he finds that he doesn’t even mind. He deserves the pain; and there’s a bittersweet undercurrent in the burning sensation, something Len’s not ready to give up. He never will be, but he will have centuries, millennia to recover.

  
“However,” Barry speaks again, so softly that his words are another caress on their own, “I can come back. You can come to me, whenever you want.”

The implication makes Len’s chest hurt, in a strange, pulsating way. What is this sensation against his ribs? He can’t decide if he’s dying or soaring, but he doesn’t have the time to examine the feeling closely. Barry’s right there, saying what Len did not even dare hope for – but why?

  
“Can’t you see I’m a monster?” he asks, and Barry’s smile makes the pain in his chest so much worse.

  
“I thought I saw that before. But now,” Barry smiles, and takes a step closer: Len can feel his heat radiating off his skin and it hurts, oh, it hurts so good, “now I see _you_.”

Len can’t help the gasp that escapes him – what does it mean that the mirror shard, supposed to twist the beautiful into ugly and the disgusting into beautiful, made Barry see him as a monster? How ridiculous, that he tried to make Barry stay with magic, and all along the young man would have seen him as… something. Not something to fear, no, but something to love.

Len takes a deep breath – the cold air does nothing to soothe the pain in his chest – and then Barry leans forward and kisses him, as if Len’s not a monster at all, magic or not. He’d tasted the young man’s lips before, enchanted and cold, but it was nothing compared to the sensation of his warm, curious mouth. It hurts, of course it does; Len can hear the ice crackling and feel the outer walls melting, bit by little bit. His reign is over, for now, maybe for years, decades to come. He feels himself grow weaker by the second… nonetheless, he never wants this kind of pain to stop.


	21. Hogwarts!AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I planned to only make a graphics set but somehow a drabble came out of it XD the graphics are [here.](http://pheuthe.tumblr.com/post/142419871467/its-driving-barry-mad-hes-the-fastest-seeker)

It’s driving Barry mad.

He’s the fastest Seeker in the history of Hogwarts. He hasn’t lost the Snitch once in the last four years - but a match… oh, matches are a whole other problem.

The lions usually wipe the pitch with badgers; Slytherins haven’t been a problem since Rory got himself banned and Barry’s team haven’t had to worry about burning Bludgers.

But somehow, they just can’t get past the Ravenclaw defenses. Barry doesn’t know if Snart keeps his team on the pitch every night, drilling the tiniest details of every play imaginable into their heads, but it sure seems like it when Barry thinks, during yet another match, that he has them figured out, that they have broken through the ironclad defenses- only for the Ravenclaws to turn around as one and perform some ridiculous maneuver that earns them thirty points by the time Gryffindor recovers from the shock and realizes what they are doing.

It’s completely maddening, is what it is - Snart is only a seventh-year student, and sure, he’s smart, but he’s also unbearably smug when he wins (which is really most of the time) and Barry just wants to win and show Snart that a victory can be accepted graciously and with humili-

Ah, who is he kidding, he wants to beat Snart so badly that he could rub the guy’s face in it for weeks.

Maybe that’s what possesses Barry to march up to Snart on Christmas Eve (Snart always stays at Hogwarts - Barry knows, because he always stays too) and challenge him to a match, one-on-one.

Snart gets a funny look on his face, but he shrugs and swings his long legs over the bench to get up.

Forty minutes later, Barry’s loud gloating gets rudely interrupted when Snart kisses him, right there on the frozen Quidditch pitch, ankle-deep in freshly fallen snow and he tastes like victory to Barry, victory and warmth and once his brain starts working again, a great deal of confusion.

“What-” he yelps, and Snart frowns, in that definitely-not-cute way where a deep line forms between his eyebrows and Barry just kinda wants to poke him in the forehead and feel that crease under his fingertips. Not that he would feel much, with his fingers frozen through his sub-par Warming charm.

“I thought that was the whole point of you asking me out,” Snart mutters and his hands, until then resting comfortably over Barry’s hips, start slipping off. Barry grabs Snart’s Quidditch cloak before he can think about why he doesn’t want the older boy to move even an inch further away.

“I just asked you for a match!” he sighs. “Why would you have thought that I was asking you out?”

“We ARE out,” Snart’s lips, still a bit red, from the frost or from Barry’s mouth, curl into a smirk, “and also, Barry… I’m a Keeper.”


	22. 'switched it up a bit'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snippet inspired by [this gifset](http://supercanaries.tumblr.com/post/143156848321/grantgust-switched-it-up-a-bit-krystal) of Grant's new haircut.

When Barry saunters into the room, Len nearly drops the cold gun at the sight. 

There’s something different - the shirt is the most obvious choice, slightly big and bunched on Barry’s lean body, the collar obscenely open halfway down his chest. It’s steel grey and sinfully soft, inviting to touch: Len would know, because the shirt is his.   
  
But no, it’s not the shirt that catches his eye. Barry smirks at him, letting Len’s gaze drift up and down in appraisal with confidence he does not often possess. Barry can be cocky or awkward, shy and bashful or cute and caring, but he rarely exudes raw confidence the way he does now, and it’s making Len’s knees weak and his cock heavy, fingers just twitching to touch.  
  
“You like?” the dork asks, one eyebrow twitching up suggestively as he turns his head to the side, showing off the new hairstyle.  
  
“What did you do?” Len asks - croaks, more like, and he’s not ashamed to admit that his voice has dropped at least an octave at the sight. He never thought a simple haircut could do this to him, but the shaved sides give Barry a roguish, rougher look and it suits him, transforms him into a playful rascal instead of a cute, goody-two-shoes nerd.

Len fell in love with the nerd, but he wants to drop to his knees in front of the rascal.

“Switched it up a bit,” Barry turns his head to the other side, and one tiny strand, otherwise styled up with perfection that his windswept hair rarely achieves, hangs into his forehead. Len can’t help but push away from the table: he’s right in front of Barry in about two seconds flat, reaching up to brush away that tiny, short strand. Barry laughs at him and pulls away a bit:  
  
“Hey, don’t mess it up already,” he teases, but Len doesn’t miss the shiver that wrecks through his body when Len’s hand drops a little, cupping his neck as he runs his thumb over the newly shaved space over Barry’s ear. Fuck, Len gets it now, why Barry is always so eager to run his hands over Len’s head whenever Len gets a fresh haircut - there’s something raw and exciting about running his fingers over bare-skin-but-not-really, dragging his blunt nails over the short hair and seeing Barry’s eyes flutter shut at the feeling.  
  
“I know that shirt,” he breathes onto Barry’s skin as he mouths at the delicate column of the speedster’s neck, indecent and exposed in the low V of the open collar. He smells like professional hair product but tastes clean and warm, groans when Len drags his teeth down the paths between the tiny moles he could draw in his sleep. Barry’s fingers close around Len’s biceps, twitch when Len’s mouth finds a particularly sensitive place.

“Mine was itchy… lots of tiny hair.”

Len’s chuckle ghosts over Barry’s kiss-warmed skin:  
  
“You sure you’re not itchy anymore? I could help you, brush all the hair off,” he smirks and slides his hand underneath that grey shirt, fingertips drifting down the flat plane of Barry’s stomach. It contracts under Len’s touch and Barry’s breath is loud and shaky when he inclines his head, the shaved side brushing against Len’s temple, punching goosebumps into his skin.  
  
“Yeah. You could.”


	23. merman!AU - underwater kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fill for a prompt from thedorea on tumblr: coldflash - underwater kiss.

Barry doesn’t startle anymore when he feels fingers on his shoulder through his scuba suit. He turns, slowly, and a smile stretches his mouth around the regulator when he sees Len floating only a couple feet away. His skin is a ghastly shade of blue, this deep down, but his smirk, full of sharp, pointed teeth is cocky as always when he gestures Barry to follow him.

There’s no need to think twice by now; Barry trusts Len to show him the best sights when they’re alone. The merman never shows up when Cisco and Caitlin come along, and Barry hasn’t told them about the existence of actual merpeople for fear of someone dragging Len away to be dissected in a lab. He knows that he’s keeping a groundbreaking discovery in the field of marine biology all to himself - he _knows_  that S.T.A.R. Labs could use the funding and the recognition. But he can’t bring himself to compromise Len’s safety; if he ever thought about it even for a second, the sight of Len, swimming freely in front of Barry, his hind fins kicking powerfully and his body a graceful arch, would definitely change Barry’s mind. 

And so, here he is, two months into their research trip looking for life in the deeper parts of the ocean; what they’re looking for keeps staring at Barry with those unsettling, beautiful blue eyes and Barry’s completely lost. He can hardly think of anything else than Len these days - when he’s out of water, he can’t wait to get back under, to swim with Len and discover the nooks and crannies of the underwater world that no diver would get to see if someone didn’t _show_  it to him.

Len slips through the water with swiftness and elegance that Barry cannot hope to mimic, with the heavy gear and the water pressure making him sluggish and clumsy. He makes his best effort not to break anything down here, feeling like it would be a sacrilege, but when he looks at Len, the merman doesn’t seem to care much. He doesn’t brush against the fragile corals, but he also doesn’t look concerned about it when Barry does, by accident. It’s Len’s natural habitat, not some priceless treasure to him - Barry still remembers the first time it happened, how he froze in fear that Len would disappear, or worse, attack, but Len nearly looked at the broken-off piece of coral and then motioned for Barry to follow. Barry then though of how he would react if someone walked with him in the Central City park and accidentally snapped a twig off a nearby tree: he probably wouldn’t care all that much either.  
  
This time, Len leads him through groves of black corals and Barry takes a moment, as usual, to appreciate the eerie but beautiful sights. Len gestures, again, seemingly impatient, and Barry turns away from the swaying branches of the tree-like organisms to follow the greatest wonder of them all. 

Len stops not too far away, his bony fingers with pale bluish webbing waving towards something on the sea floor. Barry swims down to study the obviously foreign object, and raises an eyebrow through his mask when he sees that it’s a phone; a relatively modern one, in a thick plastic case - it probably fell out of a ship some time ago. He turns to Len, and gestures at his ear, then at his mouth: they really don’t have a good way of communicating, because to Barry’s disappointment, Len has yet to show any signs that he can use telepathy. He makes noises, sometimes, but Barry can’t decipher what the strange, deep sounds mean, and the standard scuba sign language just makes Len look really confused. They’re only left with gestures, and Barry should’ve guessed that ‘phone’ won’t really be in Len’s register - he did not expect the merman to look quite so unhappy, though. He shakes his head and points at the phone again, then at his mouth, then towards Barry’s face. He’s gesturing wildly, and Barry decides to give in and look again, even though he doubts there’s much to see.

He plucks the phone out of the sand and turns it over - and that’s when he realizes what Len’s confused gesturing means. The phone has one of those custom cases with people’s printed photos on them - this particular one is a photo of a young couple, two girls in their mid- or late twenties, with braids in their wet hair and colorful tanktops clinging to their skin. They’re kissing, even though one of them seems to be laughing as she peeks into the camera, holding up her girlfriend’s hand.

Barry looks up from the phone, and nearly startles at how close Len is. His pale, webbed hand reaches for the phone and Barry feels the pressure of Len’s fingertips running over the picture - the merman looks up again, and points at Barry’s face. 

Then, at his own mouth.

Barry swallows. Surely the merman can’t mean what it _seems_  like he means, right? But Len’s reaching for him and Barry has to actively fight his instincts, this deep underwater, not to flinch away when Len’s fingers curl around his regulator and pull it out of his mouth.

This is not the first time they have done this - when Len first saw Barry, he was quite curious and very nervous, and Barry slowly pulled his mask off then to show Len that they were not _that_  different (apart from the obvious fact that one of them could breathe underwater on his own).

But now, they’re deeper, and Barry’s heart, trained as it is to keep steady even in stressful situations, kicks up a beat or two. He squints as his eyes try to adjust to the unpleasant sting of the water, which might be crystal clear here but is also salty - his vision is still basically nonexistent when he feels a touch across his cheek, long fingers and a soft palm gliding over his skin. It’s not cold, not with the water of the same temperature all around them, but Barry still shivers, his skin tingling where Len is touching.

They don’t have much time - seconds, really, until Barry needs to breathe, but he tries to hold on to the little bit of oxygen still in his system when Len’s blurry face comes closer, closer, until Barry’s eyes close again on instinct and soft, plump lips touch his own. It’s obvious Len doesn’t know what he’s doing because he just hovers there, unmoving - kissing must be something that escapes merpeople completely. 

Barry pulls away, holding up one hand in a ‘wait’ gesture that Len has learned before, and takes a couple of breaths from his regulator. There’s salt in his mouth, in his eyes, everywhere around him, and he still can’t really see, so he reaches for Len and the merman swiftly presses into his touch. The skin of his neck is strangely rough under Barry’s fingers, but not unpleasant, and then Barry leans in and slots his mouth against Len’s, licking at his lower lip and ignoring the strange sensation of seawater invading his mouth. He feels a sucking motion, water being drawn away from his lips a little bit, and Len’s gills flutter against Barry’s palm. He has the strange feeling that this is Len sucking in a breath of surprise, and he smiles a little: it makes Len pull away immediately and his fingers trace the edges of Barry’s smile, eyes focused on studying Barry’s face. 

Barry regrets it when he has to breathe again, and he wishes they could have more than a couple of seconds at a time; maybe one day, he’ll learn how to communicate with Len enough that he’ll be able to get the merman to come up, to shallow water, where Barry could maybe just use a snorkel or figure out a way to really show Len how humans kiss. 

For now, he’s left with a tingling in his stomach - and with webbed fingers holding onto his own as Len leads him back through the forest of black corals.


	24. a kiss on the neck (meta!Len)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for anon on tumblr: a kiss on the neck.

Len’s eyes are pained when he looks at Barry. He never would have thought that the boy would betray him like this, but he guesses even superheroes aren’t everything they’re made out to be, after all.

Barry collapses in another peal of laughter, clutching at his stomach as he doubles over, wheezing, and Len thinks this is really a rather excessive reaction to the situation at hand.

“It’s not that funny, you know,” he attempts to sound dignified, but it’s very hard to do when his lips are covered in a layer of crackling ice.

Fuck meta powers, seriously. He’s been trying to learn how to drink for days, and so far, all he got for his trouble are IVs from a concerned Caitlin and giggle fits from his asshole of a boyfriend, who’s basically tearing up every time Len touches a glass at this point.

And it’s not like Len’s not making any progress, dammit: he almost always manages to get the glass nearly all the way to his mouth before it starts frosting over. Sometimes, like just now, the water even touches his lips.

Unfortunately, that just means he gets more ice over his mouth and he has to break off the excess that gets stuck to his lips. 

Did he say ‘fuck meta powers’ lately? Because fuck meta powers, so damn hard.

“Fuck you,” he tells Barry instead, glaring at the idiot speedster. It’s not fair, really: from what Len knows, Barry collided with trash cans and trucks and lamp posts before he learned to control his speed, and here he is, laughing like crazy just because Len cannot yet control his abilities that have only really surfaced a week ago. 

Hence his irritation (and a mild case of dehydration). 

Barry looks like he’s suffocating, probably because he’s trying to suppress his chuckles, but he’s still grinning madly when he steps closer to Len.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but it’s hard to believe him when he’s still audibly sniggering under his breath. Len turns his back on him, which gets him speedster arms wound around his waist, Barry’s chin tucked over his shoulder. They still fit, despite Len’s newly acquired powers - nothing much has changed, really, and Len’s grateful for small victories. 

Though, if he’s completely honest, his vindictive streak paints a vivid image of how beautiful it would be if his whole body could exhibit the ice powers and Barry’s lips would get stuck to his neck like to a metal railing in winter. The warmth of Barry’s kiss against the side of his neck makes Len shiver, a little, and the speedster is that much closer to forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats against Len’s skin, warm and happy and inviting, excitement buzzing through him in tiny sparks of electricity that don’t hurt Len’s skin anymore. Well, maybe the meta powers do have some uses, after all… Len can’t wait to be in full control so that he can use them to drive Barry crazy.

Out in the streets _and_  between the sheets.


	25. 'best friend's sibling' AU (with a twist)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for anon: 'best friend's sibling' AU. Got a bit out of hand so it doesn't exactly fit the prompt 100% - but I tried ^^;;;

Barry sees red.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was so mad, and the rage fuels his whole body as he stalks through the school’s courtyard to the picnic tables where several people are having their lunch, despite the crisp April air. He’s barely aware of his own actions, much less of his words - all he knows is that it’s not fair and he has to say something or his head will explode.

Sara Lance, currently straddling the head cheerleader’s lap with her arms set on the girl’s shoulders, doesn’t even try to interrupt Barry’s rant that descends on her like the wrath of heavens. She does quirk an eyebrow at him, which only sends Barry into another spiral of ‘you shouldn’t cheat on your boyfriend, it’s so not okay even if the person you’re kissing is a girl’. He gets tangled up in his own words somewhere in the middle of listing all of Len’s great qualities and has to stop for a breath - his mild asthma always gets worse during the early spring - when Sara holds up her hand and her surprise turns into a frown of confusion. 

“What the hell are you talking about, Allen? I’m not _dating_ Len - are you out of your mind?”

That effectively cuts off the other half of ‘Len-is-great-and-you-should-be-ashamed-for-hurting-him’ speech that was just winding up in Barry’s chest like a loud music box, ready to be sprung on the girl who… apparently _isn’t_  cheating after all.

“What…?” Barry manages, embarrassment and dread battling for dominance as he feels his cheeks turn red. Sara, to her credit, doesn’t take the opportunity to be mean to him, like so many people do; she just shrugs and chuckles, a little:

“Len and I, we’re friends. Kissed like once - it didn’t go that well. And that was back when you were still in middle school, kid,” she adds with a small smirk and Barry wants earth to open up and swallow him; however, his mind is already whirring, trying to figure out just why-

“How did you even figure we were dating?” Sara asks, her probably-girlfriend watching the situation with interest, and something clicks in Barry’s mind just then. He feels blood drain from his face, because… no, surely it can’t be. Right?!

“I have to go,” he mutters and turns away, ignoring Sara’s chuckling and wondering just where he could find Iris - so he could ask her why the heck has she kept insisting, ever since September rolled around, that Len and Sara were a couple.

He catches a glimpse of her in the school paper’s room and storms in without as much as a knock.

“How could you lie to me?” he snaps, and Iris turns to him with wide eyes:

“What?”

“You lied to me. About Len and Sara. They were never dating, she just told me - after I yelled at her for cheating on him, oh my god, I’m gonna have to buy her an apology chocolate or something,” he groans and collapses on the nearest chair, hiding his face in his hands.

“Barry-”

“No, don’t say anything. It’s your fault. It’s my fault too, I guess, for sticking my nose into other people’s business, but I just didn’t want him to be hurt, even if he was dating someone who isn’t me, and-”

“Barry, you really shouldn’t-”

“I know, I know I shouldn’t still like him, it’s pathetic and stupid and just because he’s not dating Sara doesn’t mean he’d wanna date a guy, or _me,_  but I still don’t get it: why did you have to lie to me? I could’ve handled ‘he doesn’t feel like that about you, Barry’, you know? You didn’t have to give him a fantasy girlfriend for me to back off, Iris.”

He finally looks up at her, and her face is pure mortification - but she’s not looking at Barry, not at all. Her eyes are trained on something behind Barry’s back, and he whips around, only to feel like he’s surely going to explode or be swallowed by the ground at this very moment.

In the doorway, there’s Leonard Snart, all glorious, lean six feet of him, eyebrows high up over the dark frames of his glasses, holding a stack of photocopied materials and staring at Barry as if he just grew two more heads and a spiky tail.

Barry’s heart stops for about two seconds, and then the poor abused organ tries to make up for lost time by speeding up so much that it feels like a hummingbird in Barry’s chest, beating its wings against his ribs. This can’t be. He knows that he said he could handle rejection, he’s just not sure he can handle a direct one, a pitying look in Len’s beautiful eyes and then-

-Len’s looking away from Barry and frowning. At Iris. Who looks like she’s considering jumping out of a window at this point.

“Why,” Len huffs, letting the papers in his hand drop on the nearest table as he moves into the room, slow step by slow step. He looks menacing, and Barry wonders how it is possible for his body to react so strongly to just the sight of him when he’s feeling mortified to the very marrow in his bones. “Why did you tell me your brother’s straight?!”

Iris swallows, and Barry blinks at her, momentarily distracted from his utter shame.

“You told him I was straight?!”

“Oh come on,” Iris groans and runs a hand down her face. “You,” she waves towards Len, “are a complete dick most of the time, to _everyone._ And you,” she turns to Barry, “wear your heart on your sleeve and you expect every crush you get to turn into a happily ever after, till death do us part, the whole nine yards. You’re horrible for each other, alright? I was just looking out-… well. Mostly for Barry, to be honest,” she shrugs, giving Len a look that says she’s not that sorry about lying to _him_. 

Barry’s heart falls somewhere into his stomach. She’s right - he’s expecting too much, every time. He might or might not have already thought about how their names would go together if they got married (it would be Allen-Snart, for sure). He might or might not have already thought about what kind of a father Len would be (a great one, considering how completely focused on his ten-year-old sister he seemed, that one time Barry saw them downtown). He bites his lip, trying not to look too dejected as he rises from his chair.

“We might not be perfect for each other, that’s entirely possible,” Len says and Barry’s head snaps up at the words as he stares at the older boy. Only when Len turns to look at him do the implications start to coalesce into an actual thought in Barry’s head: Iris lied to _Len_ too. And if Iris thought she had to lie not only to Barry, then maybe- “But there’s one thing we might have in common after all. I very much enjoy proving people wrong when they assume something about me.”

Len watches Barry with that steely look of his, a little squinty and seriously hot, and Barry feels his throat tighten for reasons entirely more pleasant than anxiety or shame. 

“What do you say?” Len asks, and Barry’s not even sure what the question is here - if Len’s saying he’s okay with Barry taking things too seriously, or if he just wants to make out a bit to piss Iris off.

Barry’s okay with it, whatever _it_  is, so he mumbles a strangled ‘yes’ and watches Len’s face transform as he smiles. Not that cocky smirk of his (that Barry loves anyway) - this is a genuine smile, soft and warm and a little dorky, and Barry’s heart leaps up in his chest. Len walks closer and Barry’s knees nearly give out when he reaches for Barry’s hand and twines their fingers together, like it’s that easy, like it’s not the biggest thing that has happened in Barry’s life, ever. 

“What do you say, Barry? Wanna grab some lunch together? Or did you already eat before you started telling off my not-girlfriend for cheating on me?”

Barry squeaks and glances at Iris - she looks decidedly unimpressed, even a bit irritated as she frowns, her arms crossed over her chest. And… okay, maybe, just maybe, Len was a bit right about proving people wrong. It does feel good to squeeze Len’s hand and turn away from Iris’ disapproval, smiling at Len and feeling like his mouth is going to split at the sides because he’s grinning so hard it hurts.

“Lunch is fine. I mean. I’d like to?”

“Cool. See you later, co-editor,” Len waves at Iris with his free hand and smirks, “and thank you for taking over the advertisement duty, how very generous of you.”  
  
He pulls Barry out of the room before Iris has any time to protest, and Barry snickers all the way to the cafeteria. 

“You’re gonna milk this for a long time, huh?” he asks, and Len gives him a smug smirk that’s all the answer Barry needs. 


	26. 'two miserable people at a wedding' historical AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fill for an anon prompt on tumblr.

“If you don’t make your move tonight, Leonard, I swear to God, I’m not taking you to any more of these,” Sara teases and looks around the grand hall, probably to locate the wine. Len can’t blame her - social events have never been a favorite pastime for either of them, but he has a very specific goal in mind tonight, even without Sara’s ribbing.

Unfortunately for him, as a known pirate, he cannot exactly secure an invitation for himself - even though trading his precisely constructed nautical maps with the Royal Navy has given him enough leeway that he isn’t in danger of getting arrested, and his wealth means that at least half of the people present tonight can’t afford to make an enemy out of him when their centuries-long family trees tremble under the weight of their debts. They still stare, though, and Len still has to drag Sara to yet another snobby event to get his hands on his most recent target.

They have attended two weddings and three grand balls, Sara and him, ever since their unlikely friendship blossomed last season, over some horribly boring negotiations with that pompous bastard Admiral Hunter. Len knows there have been rumors of their impending engagement, but he has no intention of binding Sara to himself; they might both enjoy each other’s company, but their marriage would be a trainwreck of scandal upon scandal and they both know it. However, he’s not above wheedling for a favor with her - a favor that gets him access to the supposed event of the season.

The wedding of Earl Edward, the future Duke of Thawne, and Baroness Iris West. 

Grandeur is the theme of the day, if the tasteful, yet opulent decorations are any sign. There are flowers everywhere, the kinds that had to have been brought from quite far away, and everything seems to glint with gold - Len thinks of his sister for a moment, and how overjoyed she would have been if she could see. He resolves to steal one of those crystal goblets with gold engraving for her and focuses on the task at hand: finding his ‘prize’ in the crowd of exquisitely cut hair and unnecessarily adorned coats. 

He finds who he’s looking for not a minute later: the Viscount Allen, looking downright edible in his scarlet coat and cream trousers, the gold embroidery setting off his hazel eyes - that are altogether too shiny, considering the ceremony has not even started yet. He’s standing a little to the back, not talking to anyone, and he looks like such a little ball of misery that Len just wants to pet his hair and show him the world from aboard his ship. That probably wouldn’t go that well, though - the Viscount is a proud man, despite his young age, and even though he often projects his emotions quite clearly for the world to see, he doesn’t take kindly to pity, from what Len has discovered.

However, the boy tends to react to audacity with startled awe, and so Len doesn’t even hesitate as the wedding party moves to the church and Len slides onto a pew right next to the young Viscount. Hazel eyes widen in shock when they register him - in all fairness, Len should not be sitting right next to the closest family, and he most _definitely_  should not be sitting on the bride’s side, since he is officially here with Sara, who got them invitations through her surface-deep, yet warm connection with Earl Edward. But fortune favors the bold, as he has learned, and so he smirks at the Viscount and then turns to look forward, towards the altar, as if he belongs right there at the boy’s side.

“What are you doing here?” the Viscount hisses, right before the music starts playing. Len shoots him an amused look and presses his finger to his lips in a gesture that clearly says ‘shhh’ without him having to make the actual sound: the Viscount looks like an offended cat for a second before he braces himself and stares forward as well, posture rigid and jaw clenching so hard that Len is worried the boy will break some of those perfect teeth of his. 

His eyes get progressively more and more shiny as the ceremony drones on, mindless blabber about love and obedience and the true purpose of marriage. Len tunes out the bishop’s voice and focuses on the Viscount instead - he’s breathtaking in his misery, his pain written clearly in every inch of his face, and Len’s heart aches in sympathy. Yes, he has been pursuing the boy subtly but relentlessly for months - however, in this moment, he truly wants to be there for him, to make him see that just because his first love is getting married to another, the Viscount’s future is an open door beyond which there are many possibilities.

And if Len wishes to offer himself as one of those possibilities, well, that is his right. The Viscount has not turned him down in any way yet, after all: he huffs and puffs and stalks away, beautifully flustered, but he has never asked Len to stop this nonsense once and for all.

He sits at Len’s side now, so tense he is nearly vibrating with suppressed… rage, or sadness, or hopelessness, who knows, and Len cannot bear it any longer. He reaches across the narrow space between them and takes hold of the boy’s hand, curled into a tight fist in his lap. The Viscount jerks his hand away, obviously startled, but his eyes are so damn shiny with unshed tears when he turns that Len cannot help but reach for him again, looking him right in those sad, sad eyes. His fingers slide over the Viscount’s knuckles, then slip to take a firm grip of his hand - he can see the shock, the scandalized eyebrow twitch in the boy’s face, but he does not pull away this time. Instead, his fingers tighten between Len’s, like he’s trying to draw some strength from the grip.

Len lets him, even though the hold borders on painful. The Viscount does not let go for the entirety of the ceremony.

When it’s over, the Viscount is gone before Len can do much about it - he becomes a flash of scarlet at the edges of Len’s vision, but there is no opportunity to approach him until the wedding feast has made people slower, full of food and steadily getting drunk. The Viscount, it seems, has not taken the opportunity to drown his sorrows - instead, Len finds him holding up the weight of the world in the gardens, illuminated with rows of torches for tonight. 

“Lord Allen,” Len tilts his head, offering the Viscount a small semblance of propriety to hide behind. Len is aware of what Sara said earlier - that she would refuse to take him to more of these events if he did not make his intentions clear tonight; but somehow, he cannot bring himself to hound the young man when his heart has so obviously been thoroughly shattered not too long ago. He looks raw, pained when he glances up at Len and returns the half-nod, and Len sits down on the edge of the fountain, right next to him, and offers his own goblet, filled with fragrant wine.

“Sir Snart,” the boy croaks, and Len wonders just how many tears he has shed, how many he has swallowed to have his voice wrecked like this. It is almost painful just to listen to him, and Len inclines his goblet towards the boy again. He obviously needs a drink, not so much for his parched throat as for his parched heart, and Len will gladly provide; he will even spend his evening guarding this young man so that he does not make a fool of himself, as those with a broken heart are wont to do in front of the perpetrators of their pain.

“You will yet find love,” he says, and he feels ancient as he speaks the words - but he has come to know them to be true in those years that separate him and this young man, and he has been hurt enough in the process. He knows about broken hearts, about the resolve never to make himself vulnerable like that - and maybe it is ironic that the one to have broken through Len’s own walls is the very man sitting next to him, on the verge of closing himself off in turn. Len does not want to let that happen, even if all he can offer are words that must sound dull and untrue to the Viscount’s ears.

And sure enough, the boy laughs, bitter and petulant, as he finally pulls the goblet out of Len’s hand and takes a hearty swig. He starts coughing almost immediately, and Len smiles, reaching out to steady the goblet in the Viscount’s hand before it can fall, or tip enough to splash wine on his clothes.

“Careful. I have to steal that goblet for my sister later,” he half-jokes, and the Viscount, to his surprise, does not look too offended at the implications.

“Why do you talk that way? Does it not bother you when they all call you a thief behind your back?” the boy asks, eyes glinting with curiosity instead of pain for half a moment, and Len will take it, even though it means discussing himself in ways he would rather not.

“It _is_ what I am,” he says softly - he will not pretend to be better than what he is, he never has, with these people. “I am a pirate, and a thief, and I lie to people and I rob them.”

The Viscount’s mouth curves downwards in displeasure at that. “That is not all you are.”

“Oh?” Len blinks, raising an eyebrow - he would not mind hearing what the young man thinks of him, but he has not given him much reason to think anything else than the others do; Len has built his pursuit of the young Viscount on the glances stolen across rooms, on lingering looks sliding over him, sticky and heavy and sweet like molasses - definitely not on any evaluation of himself as better than he is.

“Yes,” the Viscount continues - his knee is pressing into Len’s thigh, and he doesn’t think the young man is aware of it, but Len will be damned if he pulls away first, “I see it, you know. The good in you. You are a good man, Sir Leonard Snart.”

It takes Len aback - he has not come for this, has not expected to be quite so firmly… _believed in_. The surprise must show on his face, despite his attempts to mask it with a smirk: and then, the young Viscount is leaning in and pressing a small, sweet kiss to his cheek. The boy turns the color of his coat by the time he’s done, in barely a blink of an eye, and he leaves Len shaken and unsteady even sitting down.

“You may be right - I might love again,” the Viscount mumbles as he stands and walks back to the hall.

It takes Len a good five minutes to realize he has taken Lisa’s goblet with him.


	27. 'meeting online' AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for anon on tumblr: "meeting online" AU. 
> 
> Warning for a slight mention of suicidal behavior - it's a misunderstanding and nobody gets hurt at all, but still.

Len’s fingers fly over the keyboard like angry hummingbirds, his eyes fixed on the code on his screens as he mentally counts down the time he has to bypass the STAR Labs’ security protocols before everything goes to shit.

He’s twelve seconds early, which might be a little disappointing due to the lack of a dramatic effect, but after a short wait while he downloads everything there is to find, Len is proud of himself anyway as he sifts through the encrypted files, deciding what to keep and what to ignore. Some of these will fetch quite a prize on the black market - however, the schematics aren’t really what he’s looking for tonight (even though that absolute zero weapon looks intriguing as hell).

No - tonight is all about the mysterious hero saving the people of this city. Tonight is all about the Flash, and about how Hartley has triangulated his position to coincide with STAR Labs’ coordinates more often than not. Len wants proof, he wants explanations and lab results and an identity, and the curiosity drives him to dig deeper and deeper-

-until he finally opens a file on the particle accelerator explosion, and there it is, in all its glory, pages and pages of medical check-ups and experiments. He scans the document briefly - _accelerated metabolism_  and _constant regeneration_  and _Mach 1.2, so far_  - and keeps looking, because this can’t be it. Somewhere, there has to be a mention of the Flash’s name - Len would be set for life if he could find a way to monetize that. Or maybe he won’t sell the intel to anyone: maybe he will use it as leverage if the Flash ever crosses his path.

Len’s fingers don’t twitch over the keys when he stumbles onto what he’s been looking for; they’re too well trained to remain steady, no matter what. But a chill crawls down his spine as he first lays eyes on the name ‘Barry Allen’, and scrolls down to find a photo of a young man. He looks like a total nerd, with a shy smile that could be cute if he didn’t look like it pained him to have his picture taken. There are more, but Len scrolls over those pretty quickly - his stomach turns as he sees that nerdy, cute kid laid out on a table, with tubes and wires sticking out of his skinny body. Len understands the need for such documentation, but he doesn’t linger on it anyway.

He saves the file regardless, because it contains personal details he will be able to use as his way out of any potential trouble with the vigilante (Len’s reasonable side still refuses to use ‘superhero’ in an actual real-life context). It’s only by accident that he opens another file, titled simply _To everyone_ , but his fingers freeze when his eyes fall on the first line.

_Hey guys, if you’re reading this, I’m probably dead._

Len frowns at the screen. It can’t be… he would swear he saw the Flash, or rather, the blur in the air, just yesterday, but when he checks the date of the file, it tells him that it was written only a couple of hours ago.

He runs his eyes over the few paragraphs - _I had to do it_  and _I couldn’t handle this anymore_ , and Len’s blood slowly freezes in his veins as he gets to the last sentence of the short letter.

_Someone tell my dad I love him._

He’s out of his chair before he can stop himself - there is absolutely no way he will let the hero of the city, the Scarlet Speedster, the _Flash_ , do… _that_. Len has been in some pretty dark places in his life and he knows that pretty words never really solve anything, but if he has to spend tonight talking a guy, a goddamned _superhero_ off a ledge, he’ll do it. 

The memory of those startlingly expressive hazel eyes in that photo of the Flash’s uncovered face haunt Len during the twenty minutes it takes him to reach STAR Labs on his bike. After having hacked into their computers, getting through their security is laughably easy and Len stalks through the long corridors, not really knowing where he’s going but checking empty lab rooms on the way, in case the Flash would- 

Len doesn’t particularly want to think about it.

He finally reaches the core of the building after several frantic minutes (and a lot of elevator rides) and a heavy weight lifts off his chest when he sees the Flash, alive and well, pacing up and down with his cowl hanging down his back. He’s explaining something, agitated and gesturing wildly, and Len takes a moment to just breathe, calm himself, and acknowledge the fact that he has just basically run here for nothing. 

 _Better safe than sorry_ , a tiny voice in his mind tells him, just before a surprised voice shrieks, somewhere to his left.

“Woah, woah, _woah_ , hold your horses - how the heck did you get here, man? I mean, this is a secure facility and all, are you a meta? Can you phase through walls or something? Did the Reverse Flash send you?”

The barrage of questions is halted only when Len shoots an irritated look the kid’s way: is everyone working in this facility twenty?! Len feels too old and tired all of a sudden.

“ _Bigfoot_ could walk through your security,” he snorts, and the children in the room - there are three of them - give him offended glares. He’s not sorry, because he’s not _wrong_  and judging by the slight collective pout going on here, they know it too.

He turns to look at the cutest kid, the one he actually came for, and that’s when - _seriously_ , only _that’s when_  - the guy starts doing that cute, but ineffective vibrating thing with his face. Len rolls his eyes.

“Don’t bother on my account, _Barry_.”

The blur settles into the kid’s face once again, this time with huge eyes and a slightly gaping mouth. Len hates to admit even to himself that the shape of those half-opened lips is incredibly alluring.

“How did you-”

“Bigfoot could also hack you,” he smirks, not bothering to hide his pride in his own skills. The long-haired kid on the left, behind all the computers, splutters in indignation.

“That’s not- look, man, why did you come here? Is this Eobard’s newest tactic, sending his goon to insult us so that we’re demoralized?”

Len raises an eyebrow and doesn’t dignify that jumble with a response. Instead, he glances at Barry again, nods and turns away.

“Wasn’t sent by anyone, you can all relax. Seeing as you’re alive and well, I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait… what?”

Barry’s voice sounds confused behind Len’s back, and he stops, just for a moment. That’s his mistake, because in the next second, the kid must put two and two together; he breathes out a long ‘oooh’ and then shuffles on his feet so loudly that Len doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s being all sheepish and adorable. Screw him - Len’s not supposed to be attracted to superheroes. Fuck.

“You must’ve found that letter, huh? Sorry, I… yeah, I kinda forgot to delete it?”

That turns Len around against his will, because he just _has_  to glare at the idiot for this.

“Oh, of course. Suddenly not feeling suicidal anymore, are we?”

“Sui- _Barry_?!” the only female kid on the playground yelps and stalks towards their resident superhero with concern in her big doe eyes.Len sighs and wonders why he even came - Barry obviously already has people who will take care of him. Not let him do something stupid.

“Relax,” Barry sighs and rubs his hands into his eyes. “I typed it up in case something went wrong, okay? I’m fine. Nothing happened, I just forgot to delete it, that’s all.”

Len snorts, and that makes the speedster look at him with such sincere regret that Len’s heart melts just a bit.

“Look, um…”

“Len,” he clarifies, because it’s only fair that the guy knows who will soon blackmail him about his secret identity. 

“Len,” Barry nods, and the name seems softer, coming from him - Len has to actively fight not to let the sound of it burrow in his heart, “look, I had to do some things today… and I wasn’t sure if I’d come out of it alive. I wasn’t planning on killing myself, I wrote that letter in case something went wrong, but it didn’t, I’m here, so… you don’t need to worry, alright?”

The absurdity of the situation strikes Len in that moment - the incredible irony of being told not to worry by the guy whose personal files Len hacked not an hour ago. The even worse irony of rushing into the enemy territory, so to speak, in order to make sure one metahuman kid was alive.

He must be getting senile in his old age - Lisa was making fun of him just last week. Maybe she was right and he should invest in some brain pills… he obviously can’t be thinking straight anymore.

He turns away, and a blur in the air makes the hairs on his arms stand up, a prickle of electricity brushing against him. Then Barry’s suddenly right in front of him and Len gets his first good look into his eyes.

He feels a bit lost, especially when Barry gives him a bright smile:

“You were actually worried about me?”

Len huffs. The damn superhero is blocking the door.

“You were, weren’t you.”

Len scowls, refusing to speak, and his arms cross over his chest to make it known that he’s keeping defensively quiet. Maybe he should use his leverage with the kid now, so he could just walk away.

“Thanks,” Barry continues with that huge, oblivious smile on his face, but he must notice Len’s pointed glance at the door, because he steps out of the way, still grinning.

Len takes a couple of steps in the right direction when the long-haired kid yells:

“And get rid of all the files you stole from us, yeah?”

“I still know who the Flash is, kid. Don’t push it,” he snarls and stalks away, feeling thoroughly ashamed of his overreaction. 

Next time he finds a stupid note in someone’s data, he’s gonna leave it. 

…

When all his papers fly around in a wild flurry the next day, Len only curses under his breath and swivels his chair around to glare at the damn Flash.

Then, his eyes fall on the flat box in the superhero’s hands, and the mouth-watering smell of really good pizza fills the air. Before he can ask, the idiot speedster is pushing his cowl down and plopping into the chair next to Len’s.

“Peace offering?” he smiles, and Len hasn’t had food in… well, at least eighteen hours, so he’s actually kind of grudgingly grateful.

“I’m still not deleting anything,” he grumbles, and Barry, the dork, just laughs. Len thinks he shouldn’t find it cute when cheese basically drips down Barry’s chin - who then proceeds to take in large gulps of cool air, trying to stop his mouth from burning and wiping furiously at his jawline. He’s awful, and Len’s heart is squeezing with gratitude that this kid is still alive, whether he intended to kill himself or just thought he might do that by accident. 

Maybe that gratitude is why Len doesn’t toss the kid out when he appears the next day as well.

He still tells Barry it’s just because of the donuts.


	28. 'handcuffed'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon prompt on tumblr - 'handcuffed' trope + ColdFlash.

“Be so kind and get me out of these when you’re done,” Len snaps, but his put-upon glare only revives Barry’s bout of hysterical laughter. It’s hard to take Cold seriously when he’s slumped on a dusty floor, handcuffed to old-but-sturdy pipes, and sulking in a way really unbecoming of a man way over forty.

Barry crouches down, elbows resting on his knees, and peeks at Cold from up close. Not that it helps, but it makes the man look like a bristling cat, and Barry, against his better judgment, is amused.

“I told you Gotham was a bad idea,” he comments, inspecting the sharp pointy thingy in the shape of a bat, sticking out of the wall mere inches away from Cold’s left ear. 

“Will you get me out of these or not?” Cold snarls and moves his hand, the cuff rattling insistently against the pipes. Barry contemplates leaving him there, but, unfortunately, Snart’s criminal expertise is required in several places at once, and none of those places are this dank ruin of a building. 

(Barry has a vague feeling that it wasn’t a ruin the last time he’s been here; Gotham goes through architectural landmarks at an alarming rate.)

He leans forward, kneeling in the sticky dust underneath to reach behind Snart’s back. It puts them uncomfortably close, as far as Barry’s concerned - Leonard Snart has this weird ability to be unsettling from afar, but downright paralyzing up close. Barry has never quite figured out what it is about this man that makes Barry’s brain freeze up for long, torturous seconds at a time - he’s had a vague inkling, here and there, a confused insect in his stomach caused by a quirk of an eyebrow, a flutter in his chest as a result of a curled-up lip. 

He’s been avoiding thinking about it, but even denial can take him only so far when Snart smirks at him like he knows exactly what’s going on in the speedster’s mind. He’s far too close for comfort and Barry has to get closer in order to get to the handcuffs, so he shoves the improper, half-formed thoughts away just as he shoves his hand around the man’s hip to reach the pipe. 

And of course Snart is an infuriating asshole - instead of twisting his body sideways to help Barry get to the handcuff, he stays right where he is with his back to the pipes, and spreads his legs obscenely wide, offering Barry space to move closer, eyebrow raised in an invitation. His hands are still trapped behind his back and it drapes the thermal shirt tight across his chest, rounds his shoulders in a way that makes Barry want to touch.

Barry almost chokes at the sight. He’s really glad that a good half of his face is still covered with his cowl, and that there’s probably not enough light in here to make his blush too obvious. He shifts forward, as little as he can, and reaches for the handcuff again - his fingers brush the metal, almost there, almost, just an inch forward, and another, and he can clasp his hand around the material.

Snart tilts his head and his gaze catches on Barry’s lips. Barry swallows and his brain refuses to remember the right frequency for getting someone out of handcuffs. He swallows again, unable to look away from Snart even though he probably should, for the sake of efficiency. His fingers feel clumsy through his gloves, but he refuses to move that last crucial inch closer, not when Snart’s looking at him like he wants to eat Barry alive (and Barry feels like he might actually let him). In a vague attempt to get a better hold on the cuff, Barry pulls the handcuff upwards-

-and oh, what a spectacularly horrible idea that turns out to be.

Snart’s shoulders strain against the angle and it makes him lean forward, breaching Barry’s personal space so far that Barry can actually feel Snart’s breath brushing against his exposed jaw. The unexpected movement punches a startled sound out of Snart, tiny and high-pitched and oddly strangled, and Barry lets out a slow, shaky breath in response. He doesn’t want to look at Snart, acknowledge that small, reluctant sound and what it has done to his willpower and sanity, but there’s suddenly nowhere to look BUT at Snart, into his icy blue eyes that suddenly look younger and vulnerable and a little bit apprehensive. 

If Barry didn’t know better, he would even say Snart’s… embarrassed.

And this is the story of Barry’s life, not knowing better when he really, really should. It has propelled him through time and space, hurtling towards dangers unseen and unimagined, and the same momentum of all horrible ideas in the world now pushes him that last half-inch into the madness that is kissing Leonard Snart.

If anyone could ever master the contradictory art of going both pliant and straining for control in the span of one (admittedly, great) kiss, Snart is definitely it. Barry doesn’t even try to bite back the sounds he’s making as Snart licks into his mouth and nips at his lips, just this side of too hard, too sharp. Barry’s fingers tighten involuntarily on the handcuff and Snart makes that sound again, that one tiny, choked-off sound. 

For one weird second, Barry’s mind takes the unexpected route of speculating whether or not Leonard Snart has chosen his criminal career path solely to accommodate his glaringly obvious handcuff kink, but then, Snart is sucking on Barry’s tongue and any train of thought is forgotten for a good long while.

‘Breathless and flushed’ is a great look on Captain Cold, Barry decides when the need for oxygen becomes too great to ignore. He pulls back and grins at Snart, because that’s what he does when he’s really, really hot for someone. Come to think of it, that might be the first time he’s acknowledged it even in the confines of his mind: he’s hot for Captain Cold.

It sounds like a spectacularly bad porn movie involving ice cubes and glass dildos (and there will never be enough brain bleach to remove THAT accidental discovery from Barry’s mind), but strangely, Barry finds he doesn’t really care.

Snart, it seems, has a different opinion.

“Will you get me out NOW?!” he snaps, even though his voice is still a bit rougher than it normally would be. Barry decides to take that as a compliment and finally remembers how to vibrate his hand at just the right frequency.  
  
The cuff stays firmly in place.

Barry blinks.

Snart glowers.

Barry sighs.

“Right. Batman’s cuffs. My powers probably aren’t gonna work. Just… stay put, alright?”

He’s gone in a flash, but not fast enough that he doesn’t hear the strangled insults and creative threats.

He decides not to think too hard about the fact that Batman predicted Barry coming to Captain Cold’s rescue. 


	29. "You broke what?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks guys, for pointing out the fact that the chapter wasn't showing up... there was some freaky html in the text for some reason :'D

“I can’t let you steal that,” the Flash grumbles and crosses his arms over his chest. Len will never get tired of this: Barry is incredibly attractive when he’s seething underneath all that red leather.

  
“Why not? Reminds me of you,” Len smirks and hefts the fist-sized ruby speculatively. The auction house’s alarms have been disabled, so they have a good sixteen minutes before anyone realizes something’s wrong and the police gets here.  
  
It’s been a long time since Len was actually worried when the Scarlet Speedster showed up.  
  
“You have to stop this,” Barry sighs and pushes his cowl off, rubbing a weary hand down his face. The speed with which his righteous indignation changes to exasperation has increased significantly since Len started leaving a trail just good enough for Barry to follow on his own, without STAR Labs’ fancy tracking devices. It’s more fun, this way. 

“Oh? Do I?” Len teases, then raises an eyebrow at the speedster. “What was that crash I heard?”

There was definitely some breaking involved in this breaking-and-entering, and it wasn’t Len’s fault.

Barry sighs and waves his hand around:

“Just some vase. It was too close to the wall I phased through.”

Len freezes. There was just one vase in the adjacent room. But it can’t be. Even Barry wouldn’t be _that_  unfortunately clumsy. 

Except he would. 

“You broke _what_?!” he snaps, and Barry glares.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” the speedster huffs, and at any other occasion, Len would be actually amused by Barry’s sarcasm, but now… he shakes his head and groans.

“You do realize that you broke a twenty-seven-million vase to prevent me from stealing a twelve-million diamond, right?”

Barry’s face goes from irritated to blank to terrified in a flash. Len doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry. 

“I’ll fix it,” he mumbles, but it comes out as a question. Len almost feels sorry for him. 

“Unless you want to run back six hundred years and steal it before you can break it, I don’t think that’s going to work, Scarlet.”

“This is why you have to stop doing this!” Barry exclaims and his hands fly up in exasperation. “You- you make me _do_ stuff!” 

“You certainly didn’t complain last night,” Len smirks. Ooh no… if he were a worse man, he might even insist on pointing out that Barry started it last night. However pleasurable ‘it’ turned out to be. Speedster libido was a thing of beauty. 

Barry’s cheeks turn the shade of his suit, and he looks so embarrassed (and half-aroused) and miserable that Len drops the ruby back onto its cushion and stalks to the speedster, wrapping his arms around the young man.

“Shh. I’ll steal the shards so nobody knows what you’ve done.”

He’s half-joking, but when Barry relaxes slightly in his arms and buries his face in Len’s neck… yeah, Len will probably spend the next ten minutes picking up pieces of an irreplaceable antiquity.   
  
Barry shifts in Len’s embrace and wraps his own arms around Len’s waist. His breath is warm when he exhales into Len’s shirt - the parka’s still at the cleaner’s from the last time.

“Can we please go on a normal date just once? Movies and dinner and no breaking and entering?” 

Len presses a kiss to the slightly damp, messy hair.

“Sure thing, Scarlet.”


	30. "You've been replaced."

“You’ve been replaced,” Barry announces when Len walks through the door, close to midnight and tired after chasing a lead in mid-1850s. History’s too much work, lately.

Barry’s sprawled on the couch, watching a TV show Len doesn’t recognize - judging by the amount of empty take-out containers and snack bags, the marathon’s been going on for a while. Cisco nods at him from Len’s usual spot on the right side of the sofa, whole with Barry’s feet in the guy’s lap. Len doesn’t comment, even though he itches to - he does _not_  need comments about someone named ‘Sheldon’ tonight. After all, they’ve had a tentative truce with Cisco ever since the guy proposed to Lisa (and was shot down, but took it in stride with much more understanding and kindness than Len would’ve anticipated of anyone, really). 

“Alright,” he drawls and smirks at Barry, who is giving him his cheekiest grin, head hanging back over the armrest of the sofa. “We’ll see how you feel when you need me to kill a spider in the shower.” 

Barry, the asshole, raises his head and pointedly looks at Cisco. Who stops kneading the pads of his fingers into the soles of Barry’s socked feet (Len’s not jealous, not at _all_ ) and shrugs.

“Dude, you’re on your own with that. You know I can’t handle bugs.”

“Spiders are not-”

“Yeah I’m still not killing them for you.”

Barry considers this, for about five seconds. Len walks to the kitchen, grinning even before he hears his boyfriend’s quiet whine.

“Len? Lenny?! You know I love you, right?!”


	31. Chapter 31

“I’ll help you get her back,” Barry promises, and Snart’s eyes blaze, even though the man doesn’t move. He’s standing still in the pipeline cell, but somehow, he looks like a caged lion, restless and ready to lunge for the throat.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Flash,” he sneers, drawling the last word like an insult. Barry’s heart clenches, and he steps closer, pushing his cowl back, revealing his face.

Snart visibly startles; Barry’s sure that everyone will scold him for revealing his identity to the man who had no clue about his name, not this time around, but he can’t help it. He still remembers the Snart who could’ve been - _was_  - a hero, and Barry refuses to believe that the man standing in front of him now is any different.

“Your sister,” Barry clarifies, licking his lips nervously. “I know why you’re doing this. Why you joined Thawne. He’s threatening Lisa, isn’t he? Probably holding her somewhere.”

Without the speed force aiding him, it would’ve been easy to miss the flicker of panic in those blue eyes. But Snart recovers fast and his usual smirk is firmly in place in a second.

“Ah, speedsters. Always think you know everything. So what now, _kid_ \- gonna tell me I’m just misguided? That there’s _good in me_?”

He doesn’t remember that it’s exactly what Barry told him before, once, twice, a dozen times, over the phone in Iron Heights, in Joe’s living room, in a run-down warehouse on an pile of old wooden pallets that didn’t even qualify as a makeshift bed. He doesn’t remember, because through a weird series of half-bad decisions and unlucky coincidences, he never heard it, not really.

But Barry remembers saying it, and he remembers that Snart, _Len_ , died to prove him right.

It seems like he’s been resurrected to prove him _wrong_ , but Barry’s never been great at admitting defeat.

“There _is_ ,” he says, quietly, and something about his voice must make Snart listen because he doesn’t sneer and doesn’t try to interrupt. “I was there, when you killed your father. For her. For Lisa. I _know_ what you would do to keep her safe. And I’m telling you there’s another way.”

Len’s eyes widen - Barry might have been there when Lewis died, but Len wasn’t, not this Len who was dragged out of time by Eobard Thawne. This Len didn’t shoot his own father to avenge his sister’s suffering, but Barry knows that what Lewis did to his children hasn’t gone away simply because Len does not remember the ending to this particular horror story anymore. 

“What if I don’t want another way, Flash?” he snaps anyway; he’s never been one to back down, and Barry remembers the man who screwed him over at Ferris Air simply because he believed that what Barry was doing was wrong. 

“You do,” Barry says simply and backs away from the glass, until he can reach for the command console. 

The door releases with a quiet hiss, and Snart looks around suspiciously, expecting a trap. Always looking for a catch, with his enemies, with his allies, among the words whispered in the dark - it’s so familiar that Barry’s heart tightens and he steps out of the way, leaving the path to the door open for Len.

The man takes a tentative step out of his cell and zones in on Barry, eyes narrow in that calculating way of his. 

“Should I say ‘thank you’?” he sneers, and Barry wishes there was a way for him to reach Len, again, but it wasn’t easy the first time around and Barry’s not foolish enough to believe it would be any different now. 

“No need,” he shrugs, “but I meant what I said. I’ll find Lisa, and I’ll keep her safe.”

Len is faster than Barry remembers, but he’s still human and it would’ve been easy to duck away from him when Len covers the distance between them in two quick strides. Barry doesn’t try to; he lets Len slam him into the pipeline’s uneven wall and meets the man’s fierce glare head-on.

“Stay away from her, _Flash_ ,” Len hisses in his face. Barry brings his hands up, curling his fingers around Len’s shoulders, not pushing him away, just… holding on. The tender gesture throws Len for a loop, but he doesn’t release his grip on Barry’s throat. It’s not so tight that it would be impossible for Barry to speak, and so, he does.

“My name is Barry Allen… and I have a sister, too.”

He shouldn’t be giving Snart anything to use against him: but Barry knows that he won’t get anywhere with Len until they’re on a more even ground, until Len has leverage he can lean on, even if he won’t use it.

And maybe he will: somehow, Barry’s not afraid of that anymore. Let Len try his worst - because now, Barry _knows_  what he could only believe before, that there’s good in this man’s heart, and Barry will draw it out again, if it’s the last thing he does.

“I’m no hero, _Barry_ ,” Len growls in his face and then takes a step back, just looking for a second before he turns and disappears down the corridor. 

Barry watches him go, and expectation coils tight in his belly, warm and heavy and familiar.

“Yes, you are,” he whispers and walks out of the pipeline to face the music.

 


	32. "Please don't make me socialize."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For 'anonymous' on tumblr :D

“You only want to go to be a dick about it,” Barry groans and buries his face in the pillow - the only one Len hasn’t stolen (and thrown back at him) in the past fifteen minutes. “Do you have no heart? I just spent forty-nine hours awake. Forty-nine. That’s two days.”

“I’ll make coffee, then,” Len smirks and Barry lets out a whine that reverberates even if it’s mostly muffled into a pillowcase.

“I don’t want to go. Why can’t you go by yourself?” is what he plans to ask, but it comes out as more of a ‘mmmpphhmmmmhhhhh?!’, courtesy of the pillow. Len snorts, wordlessly, and Barry turns his head to the side just enough to shoot his boyfriend an annoyed look.  
  
“I said, why can’t you go by yourself?”

“Because, genius, _you_  were the one who was invited,” Len snorts and the mattress dips under his weight. Barry’s body reacts on autopilot, curling towards Len until he’s draped around the man’s hips like a giant, squiggly worm. Len, amused, pats his hair and smirks lopsidedly, which makes Barry want to kiss him, except he’d have to move and he’s really, really tired.

“Please don’t make me socialize,” he sighs and closes his eyes against the sensation of Len running his wonderful fingers through Barry’s hair. It’s divine and Barry’s half-asleep already when Len pulls his hand back.

“I’ll remember that for the next time you wanna drag me to a baby shower,” Len promises, all fake innocence and sweet smiles. Barry shivers, and groans again.

“It’s not my fault that everyone around us has set out to repopulate Earth,” he whines, but Len’s not buying the cute act anymore (much).

“It’s your fault for still being friends with them,” he deadpans, and Barry honestly considers just going all out on the emotional blackmail, tearing up and all that. He’s learned quite a bit these past ten years from Len’s book of exquisite assholery, but it still only works about half the time for him, and he’s NOT risking doing the baby showers alone. Not when Caitlin still hasn’t figured out a way to get him at least a little bit drunk. 

With the sound of a dying whale, Barry more spills than slides off the bed, feeling like a giant glop of amorphous, tired goo: it’s more than appreciated when a warm, strong hand wraps around his waist and prevents him from braining himself on the bathroom door on his way to the shower. He tries to curl himself into Len, burying his face in the man’s neck, but he can’t really sleep on his boyfriend when they’re both standing upright, and in the end, Barry peels himself away in order to at least try and wake up.

“An hour,” he turns, glaring at Len and then pointing his finger in the man’s face: “And you don’t pick a fight with anyone. Agreed?”

“We’ll see,” Len smirks and turns to walk out of the bathroom. Barry would very much like to ask himself, in a melodramatic, high-pitched voice, why he puts up with this bullshit - but Len’s tight, tight jeans leave little to imagination and so that question would be useless even in Barry’s head. 

With the last put-upon sigh, Barry vindictively reaches for Len’s expensive body wash. If he’s got to suffer a police officer’s birthday party just so that his ex-criminal boyfriend can gloat about his full pardon, he deserves to pamper himself.


	33. "I have contemplated becoming a hermit."/"Why does anyone have to be naked?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'afterpartyattheshire' on tumblr requested this one :) or well, should I say 'issued a challenge'? It was a tough one, but I really enjoyed it so thank you for the prompt and hope you'll like it too :))  
> This one's mostly fluff, some... 'alternate future'... and domesticity. And crack.

The upside to living in a place removed from time is that there’s enough space for everyone in need of a refuge from Time Wraiths, time _pirates_ , evil speedsters or any kind of fuckery their general unfortunate destinies might bring about.

The downside is, well, that there’s enough space for _everyone_ , but not enough space so that they don’t occasionally bump into each other at what would be six in the morning if the mansion existed anywhere near reality. 

Barry groans and promptly goes red as he covers his eyes to spare them the sight of his boyfriend’s best friend, naked in front of the fridge.

“Suck it up, kid,” Mick snorts and rummages around, probably trying to find that last chocolate pudding that Jax stole yesterday while swearing Barry to secrecy. Barry thinks he knows entirely too much about every single ‘Legend’ in this house, by now, but he doesn’t quite know how to avoid the unbelievable level of comfort with each other that they have acquired somewhere along the way.

“Please go put some pants on,” Barry sighs. Mick shoots him a glare over the shoulder.

“You should be grateful it’s me and not Grey,” he huffs, and Barry wonders if he can say it’s too early for that sort of mental imagery if it’s technically neither early nor late in this place.

“Why does _anyone_  have to be naked?” he asks, exasperated, and almost jumps out of his skin when a cool hand brushes against the back of his neck in a gentle caress. 

  
“Doesn’t sound too bad to me,” Len smirks, and Barry’s expression turns all sappy for a moment - he can _feel_  it on his face, but he’s incapable of controlling himself. He leans into Len’s touch, brief as it is, and sighs:

“Yes, but I signed up to see _you_ naked. I don’t remember signing up for Mick’s balls dangling five inches from our lettuce.”

Len coughs, and it doesn’t quite conceal the laughter; Mick, offended, scowls at them over his shoulder.

“Like you ever eat your greens, kid.”

With that, he finally gives up his quest for pudding, snatching Sara’s favorite yogurt instead - there’s gonna be hell to pay, but, well, Barry now definitely knows that Mick’s got the balls to take it. The fridge door slams shut and the slap of Mick’s bare feet on the stone floor dies down at the end of the hall.

Barry twists around in his chair to demand a proper good-morning kiss, which Len, still smirking, gladly provides. He tastes like sleep, they both do; in moments like these, Barry can almost feel that the time has, in fact, stopped around them. Mornings are mostly quiet here, none of them in a hurry to get up and out when they can easily resurface in any time they need, and the relaxed laziness, together with the blurry, warm greyish light, make Barry feel almost dazed, in a good way.

“We need to do something about that,” he mumbles when he pulls away, just a little, and presses his forehead against Len’s. 

“What do you propose?” Len asks, and his fingers draw a trail up Barry’s thigh, around his hipbone and across his ribs. Barry squirms, a little, and chuckles, but Len’s not serious about the tickling and his hand flattens against Barry’s skin, trailing down again, leaving warmth in its wake.

“I have contemplated becoming a hermit,” Barry tries for seriousness, though the corners of his mouth quirk up right before he brushes his lips against Len’s. He’s dragged into the sensation, so that he nearly forgets what he’s said when Len pulls back again and his eyes sparkle with amusement:

“Oh? Is that so?”

Barry sticks his hands under Len’s shirt and pulls him closer, breathes him in, the warm scent of sleep and the herbal soap Iris made last year, for all of them, so that they would ‘have a bit of home in that weird house’. 

“Mmmhmm,” he hums, lips dragging across Len’s collarbone. It’s his secret weak spot, and Barry will probably never have enough of the rush that he feels when he remembers that he’s the only one who knows about it. “But I decided against it, on the account of not being able to do _this_ if I did.”

He bites into Len’s neck and grins at the slightly pained, mostly aroused hiss that catches in his hair. Len’s blunt nails trail down his back, and Barry shivers.

“Got time?” Len asks, voice already rough, and it’s their little private joke about carving out a place for themselves out of time when time had proven to be their enemy, but it gets to Barry every single day, how lucky they were, _have been,_ so far.

“Always,” he says, a promise and a reaffirmation, and slides his hand into Len’s, letting himself be dragged back to their bed.


	34. "I'm alive... I can tell because of the pain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for unitedplanets on tumblr :) with a side of goldennews, i.e. Iris/Lisa (just mentioned).

Barry bolts awake in the middle of the night. That, in itself, wouldn’t be unusual, at least not since he’s become a superhero; nightmares are a part of the deal that nobody’s ever warned him about.

But this time, it’s not the memory of a building falling apart with people still in it, or of his friends getting kidnapped by the villain of the month. This time, the threat is very real as he hears another clattering noise from the living room.

Barry curses mentally because _of course_ someone chose to rob his apartment. And of course it has to be the night he finally wanted to get some rest after sixty-five hours of running around and wolfing down protein bars like nobody’s business.

He can’t very well use his powers unless absolutely necessary, since the Flash suit is safely tucked away in STAR Labs, but he slides out of bed as quietly as possible and wishes he was the kind of a guy to have a baseball bat handy. 

The lights of the city illuminate the living room well enough, but Barry still blinks and squints as his eyes struggle to adjust to the shape of the man in his apartment. It’s not that Barry can’t see him… it’s just that he didn’t expect this exact man to crawl through Barry’s window at three in the morning.

Or ever, really, considering that the last he’s heard of him, Leonard Snart has died a heroic death to save the world.

Barry’s mouth falls open, but no words make it through: he stares at Len, and it _is_  Len, with his long limbs looking even longer sans the parka, grumbling quietly under his breath as he tries to move without knocking stuff down. It doesn’t work that well - as Barry watches, Len’s hip brushes against a stack of magazines and the man does his best to prevent them from falling to the floor, but a few escape his hasty grip and there’s a quiet, hissed ‘shit’. The unmistakable voice, more than anything, jolts Barry out of his weird trance-like state.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he says, and Len’s head jerks up. Several more magazines fall out of his grasp, falling to the floor with a loud ‘slap’. Barry finds himself watching the mess as if from a great distance, wondering when was the last time he cleaned up.

“I’m alive,” Len says, like it’s no big deal, but he sounds strained, and in the next moment, he bends a little bit, his hand pressing against his ribs, or his side - Barry can’t see _that_ well. “I can tell because of the pain.”

That startles Barry into action and he zips to Len’s side - no use pretending with _him_ , anyway. 

“Let me see,” he starts, then realizes he’s not going to see anything in the dark, and flashes to the light switch, then back to Len before the man can even register the motion. He peels Len’s hand away and draws a sharp breath at the sight of blood while Len’s still busy squinting against the sudden light in the room.

“What happened?” Barry asks, already pushing Len’s tight shirt up to see the wound. There’s a hiss, and an audible swallow, and Len sounds a bit like he’s going to be sick.

“You moved,” he huffs, and Barry raises an eyebrow at him. 

“What?”

“Didn’t think this place was yours,” Len snarls, and Barry closes his eyes in exasperation. If he had any doubts about the authenticity of the man who is supposed to be dead (he didn’t), the sheer amount of frustration building in Barry’s chest every time Leonard Snart is around would be proof enough. 

“So you broke into a random building - while seriously hurt.”

“Not serious,” Len argues. Barry pulls the ragged fabric of his shirt away from the wound. Len hisses, conceding Barry’s point. 

“I meant what happened to _you_ ,” Barry says while examining the - yeah, definitely a gunshot wound. Multiple shots close together, it would appear. It’s a miracle Len’s still upright, but Barry’s not going to state that out loud. It’s likely that Len’s mind is holding him steady with sheer obstinacy, and Barry’s not gonna mess with that careful equilibrium of spite.

“Got shot.”

Barry just stares. His face must be enough to convey the ‘no shit, Sherlock’, because Len makes a face and rolls his eyes. Winces again, for good measure, and sighs.

“Let’s say some people don’t believe that dying to save the world repays all debts.”

“You shouldn’t have died where nobody could see,” Barry huffs - he realizes he should probably play nice, but he’s exhausted and he’s had a really awful week - month, actually. And having Len crash back into his life after seven full years of making peace with the idea that the man was dead doesn’t exactly alleviate the stress. 

“I’ll pick a better venue next time,” Len sneers. 

It hurts in Barry’s chest, how much he’s missed that voice. With a sigh, he lets go of the bloody shirt and turns towards the kitchen.  
  
“Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

“Don’t you usually practice your craft on the  _dead_?” Len observes, and Barry gives him a pointed look that makes him smirk, even though he ends up coughing and wincing in pain again.

There’s a lot of cursing involved, and Barry has to pry the bottle of rubbing alcohol out of Len’s hands regardless of how many times the idiot claims that one little sip won’t hurt anybody. Not that Barry can blame him: blood-loss and several bullet-holes in one’s body would make anyone itching for a bit of relief, so Barry dishes out some painkillers and tries to be gentle as he pries the bullets out of Len’s side.

There are three, in the end, none of which have splintered or caught anything (too) vital.

“I’m still calling Caitlin over later,” he declares as he lets cold water run over his bloody hands. He really should’ve done the dishes before… but in all fairness, he didn’t expect to perform amateur emergency surgery on his dead nemesis in the wee hours of the morning.

Len must be exhausted, because he doesn’t complain. He watches Barry, with that attentive, disconcertingly focused way of his, even though he’s loopy on meds already. Barry doesn’t have to look to _know_  - his neck itches under the weight of the gaze he used to know so damn well. He lets the cold water run over his hands for a moment longer than absolutely necessary before he turns around again. It’s been such a long time, and he’s been carried on a wave of adrenaline so far, but with Len bandaged up and not keeling over, the rush of it all is starting to recede, leaving behind the painful, bittersweet memories.

Len’s never been in this apartment before, but he’s been in Barry’s space, and it stings to see him here now, and feel like he might still belong, if everything weren’t quite so surreal. Barry walks closer and wonders if maybe someone has caught him in an imaginary world that will dissolve right in front of his eyes any moment. Len, damn him, twitches as if reaching out, but drops his hand before the gesture can fully form. His mouth is a vicious sneer, one reserved for those who hurt him but would never know until they were hurt in turn.

“Ah. I forgot - you’re married man now, aren’t you? Mr. Allen - or is it Mr. West?”

The bite in Len’s words is all pain, Barry still remembers that; remembers being younger and less resilient against it, incapable of handling Len’s quiet, simmering rage at the world. Now, he doesn’t feel the same trepidation and helplessness - now, he crosses his arms over his chest and actually enjoys bringing this piece of news to the man who couldn’t have been back from the dead for _too_  long, or he would’ve known already.

“She’s Mrs. Snart-West now, actually.”

The startled look on Len’s face is worth every argument he’s ever had with Iris about marrying the half-criminal sister of a fully-criminal brother. As if he could throw stones, where the matter of morality and law enforcement is concerned.

Len’s still gaping like a fish, so Barry walks back to the living room and retrieves a picture frame. Len leaves smudges of blood on the stainless steel, but that’s a small price to pay for the way his eyes widen, then mist over at the sight of his sister, laughing openly in the picture, arm draped around Iris’ shoulder, both of them so pretty in white and in their private bubble of joy.

“April 2020,” Barry clarifies, leaning against the counter next to Len. “Right after the whole mess with dinosaurs- don’t ask,” he shakes his head, not wishing to go back to _that_ particular nightmare. 

Len’s grip on the frame slackens a little, and Barry owes it to his speed that the glass doesn’t shatter on the floor. He sets the frame on the counter and looks at Len, truly looks: he doesn’t look a day older than when Barry last saw him, so many years ago, but he’s visibly tired, aching, and in dire need of rest.

“Let’s get you to bed, how about that,” Barry offers, wrapping careful fingers around Len’s elbow. The icy-blue eyes dart up to meet his own, up close, and Barry’s breath, damn it, catches in his lungs like it had nearly a decade earlier, right before Len first kissed him, in a dirty back-alley, with lips tasting like the fries he’d stolen off Barry’s plate.

It’s a testament to how loopy Len really is when his eyes remain open, not just physically but also figuratively, contemplating Barry with the naked wonder that used to make Barry blush and stutter. It makes him hurt now, but he’s been through all sorts of pain in the last decade and he knows that this is not the worst kind.

“Yours?” Len asks, and Barry wonders if he’s asking just about the bed. He’s not ready to answer the _other_  implications, even with Iris no longer there as an ideal clouding his judgment as to what he might possibly truly want. So he smiles, and shrugs, and his fingers steady over Len’s elbow.

“None other here. I’m not gonna let a hurt guy sleep on the couch. Just try not to bleed on the sheets, okay?”

Len doesn’t manage to do that, in the end - but when they unwrap his bandages in the morning and the gaping wound is no longer _there_ , leaving behind only small, round scars, they have more pressing matters to attend to than discuss ruined sheets. And Barry thinks, as he sits back and lets Caitlin to her job of dragging Len into a whirlwind of exams and scans and tests, that he shouldn’t feel like the world has been righted after having been tilted out of place just a little bit. But then Len meets his eyes as Caitlin pokes yet another needle into his arm, and his smile is sardonic and lopsided and beautiful, and Barry feels like maybe, finally, things will be okay.

For a while, anyway.


	35. "Nevermind, the moment's gone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for anon on tumblr.  
> Fluff, established relationship, proposal attempts :D

Finding a five-star restaurant that will both accommodate a speedster’s appetite and admit an ex-con is not easy, but Len manages, with some charm and persuasion. Fortunately, he does not have to resort to threats… and Barry doesn’t need to know about the bribery.

Barry’s been pre-fed with ten pizzas before they left for the dinner, and Len’s having a really good time watching the kid savor the tiny courses in a way he can’t often repeat. The slow eating might also be the result of the hand-holding, but Len finds himself enjoying the physical contact, especially as nerves start twisting his stomach halfway through dinner. Barry’s touch has always had that weird effect on him where it would rile him up and calm him down at the same time, pull him back from any imaginary ledge and then force him to do stuff he never thought he would.

Like having a small velvet box in his pocket, aware of its near-imperceptible weight against his hip all through their meal. 

Everything’s perfect - just as Len has planned, for two weeks, thank you very much. There’s candlelight and roses and a string quartet plays in the background, all that sappy shit that Len used to hate and Barry always claimed he didn’t want, but Len’s seen him go misty-eyed over enough chick flicks to know the kid’s been lying his pretty ass off. Len finds the set-up less distasteful than he thought he would, but that might be the effect of Barry’s bright smile, more than the decor.  

Barry, bless his unassuming heart, doesn’t seem to suspect anything. Len squeezes his boyfriend’s hand, trying to draw courage for something that should come easy after having died and come back to life and saved the world five times over with Barry. But the words still get stuck in his throat a bit, and he has to cough and take another sip (gulp) of the champagne to dislodge the beginning of what has been carefully written as the most perfect propos-

And of course that’s when Barry’s phone rings. Or rather, when the ‘Flash emergency’ ringtone screeches over the sweet tones of the string quartet. Some of the other guests at the restaurant glare Barry’s way, and the kid blushes and fumbles his phone, nearly dropping it into the remains of his crème brûlée. 

“I’m really sorry,” he gives Len the usual apologetic smile, and Len nods and waves him off without a word: he understands that Barry is, and always will be, first and foremost a hero. It doesn’t have anything to do with his powers - although they do make it all more difficult - it’s who Barry is, by nature, always helping, always ready to risk his neck for someone else. It’s who Len fell for, suddenly and inevitably, all those years ago.

But he still wants to cry a little bit as he watches Barry nearly run out of the restaurant. 

Of course, he returns fifteen minutes later, flushed and beaming, which tells Len that the heroing was successful. His tie is crooked - he could never tie a proper knot for the life of him - and Len’s heart warms impossibly at the sight. He doesn’t hesitate to capture Barry’s hand in his own when Barry reaches over the table, almost a subconscious gesture. Barry’s the more tactile of the two of them, but Len would be lying if he said he minded.

“What were you saying?” Barry smiles, no hesitation, no guilt, not anymore. Sometimes Len still wonders how come that a fuck-up like him has made enough right choices to make Barry Allen trust him so much, to lift that shadow of self-doubt and paranoia that was lodged in those pretty eyes when Len came back. 

The words are on the tip of his tongue, so simple, so quick, and for a second, Len teeters on the verge of just blurting it out, asking outright. But his gaze catches on that crooked tie and he’s reminded, once again, just how much Barry’s still trying, for Len, for _them_. 

And he knows then that he wants to try his absolute best, too. No… Barry will get that sappy, grand-gesture proposal even if it’s the last thing Len does.

It might very well be; this is the fourth time they’ve been interrupted by some impending catastrophe that only the Flash could avert.

At least it wasn’t dinosaurs, this time.

“Nevermind,” Len shakes his head and brings Barry’s hand to his lips, brushing a kiss to the slightly scraped-up knuckles. “The moment’s gone.”

“What moment?” Barry blinks, confused, and that tiny crease between his eyebrows makes an appearance, as always when he’s trying to puzzle out something he probably should’ve realized a long time ago, but fails to see it anyway. 

Len loves him so much it’s a steady thrum of ache and excitement and warmth right behind his breastbone. 

“There will be others,” he promises. Barry beams at him and surreptitiously glances around. His stomach, bottomless pit that it is, squeaks.

“Um. Can we get Big Belly Burgers on our way home?”

Len’s mind conjures a ridiculous image of sticking the simple titanium band into a burger, and he laughs as he pulls Barry out of his chair, more than ready to leave the perfect disaster of a non-proposal behind.

“Anything you want, Scarlet.”

(Four moths and three more attempts at ‘perfect’ later, Len pops the question in the rubble of a building that’s just been destroyed by hostile aliens, brushing concrete dust off his head. Barry cries anyway, and almost cracks Len’s ribs with the bear hug. And Len thinks that maybe, their brand of ‘perfect’ might be a little fucked-up, but at least, it’s theirs.)


	36. "Your smile is not as bright as it used to be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A random idea created by an anon prompt on tumblr. It was threatening to branch off into a longer fic so I cut it short, perhaps a little too brutally :'D

 

The fireplace has already warmed the room by the time Barry steps inside. He doesn’t remember much of the way there, but something in his chest, tight and aching, unwinds at the first blast of warm air brushing against his skin. He tugs his tie off, drapes his jacket over the sofa, and lets his body fold into the armchair right by the fire.

He remembers being a little boy too afraid of nightmares about his mother to sleep; the armchair was like a welcome embrace during those cold, long nights. He could wrap the huge, knitted blanket around his shoulders and pretend he was back in his mother’s arms.

But how can he lie himself to comfort this time, when it was his mother’s face who came for him in the streets of Central City, who took him from Iris and Joe and Wally, from his family and friends because he dared to dream that one day, he could get his happy ending?

Barry stares into the flames and does his best to let the flames burn away the bitterness, tries to tell himself that everyone back home is safe because he made this choice… but it was a lot easier to focus on the people he was saving when they were right there in front of him.

Now that he’s alone, it dawns on him that he has no idea how much time he’ll spend here. It’s not that he’s got much hope of getting out, not if he doesn’t want the speedforce to destabilize and endanger the whole city again. But time flies differently in here, even if, for some reason, he is allowed to stay in this illusion of the West house. He wonders why the speedforce didn’t bring him to the apartment he has come to consider ‘home’, but if he’s being honest, he’s glad for it. Being allowed back into the space he shared with Iris would just emphasize how lonely it is in a place with no other people.

In this armchair, by the fireplace, the loneliness almost seems fitting, even if Barry knows there will be no Joe, no Iris to walk down the creaking stairs and ask him if he’s alright. He’s stuck, for better or worse… and weirdly, after having been on the run for weeks, trying to outsmart time itself, trying to change Iris’ fate, it almost feels like he can finally relax. There’s nowhere to go from here, and Barry feels tension draining from him as he stares into the flames.

They’re safe now. His work is done, even though he really expected the ending of his story to turn out differently. Barry tries to smile, even though there’s no one to really appreciate it. They’re  _safe_ , and he’s going to have to learn for it to be enough.

“Your smile’s not as bright as it used to be,” a voice behind his back nearly gives him a heart attack. Barry whips around and his eyes widen when he sees the one person he wouldn’t have expected.

“Snart,” he blurts out, before he realizes that the man walking through Joe’s living room, handing Barry a mug of steaming hot cocoa, cannot possibly be  _real_. Snart’s dead, and Barry’s… well, Barry’s  _here_ , and none of it adds up except for the speedforce’s apparent penchant for torturing speedsters with figments of their own imagination.

He accepts the cocoa anyway, suddenly too tired to move or try to fight this. The speedforce will say whatever it is they have to say, and then, maybe, they’ll leave Barry alone. Or they’ll trap him in his own personal hell – he wonders what that will be. His mother’s death? His father’s? Watching Savitar, watching  _himself_ , kill Iris? All of it in a sick loop of helplessness and despair?

A chill runs down his spine and he sips on the cocoa as Snart folds his lean body into the other armchair. Their toes are nearly brushing, and Barry watches the man tilt his head, like a curious dog, eyes narrowed in that calculating expression Barry’s come to appreciate. Whatever their differences, he’s always admired Snart’s ability to coldly reason in heated situations – that’s something Barry could learn from him.

If the man were still alive.

“What do you want?” Barry asks eventually, when the cocoa’s half-gone and half-cold, all the tiny marshmallows already picked out. The fluffy sweets are just another proof that none of this is right: neither Joe nor Iris ever liked marshmallows, and so they were hard to come by in this house, back when Barry was a kid. But it’s just a detail, a tiny one compared to the grand scale of things, and Barry doesn’t much care why the speedforce chose to change that specific bit about the house.

He cares more why  _Snart_  is here, of all people: sure, they had their differences, but Barry doesn’t recall anything that would make the man an embodiment of his ‘hell’. Is the speedforce taking it easy on him for now? Making him face the man who died because Barry told him he could be a hero?

_Did he, truly?_  Barry wonders. There was always so much  _life_  in Leonard Snart, and Barry could see there would be so much more than crime and violence, if only the man would take the road less travelled.  _Did I really make you die?_  he thinks as he looks at the perfect copy of Snart’s cool smirk.

“Jury’s still out on that,” Snart says, and Barry almost sloshes cocoa all over his shirt, startled to have his thoughts answered. But then, the speedforce must only be reacting to what he asked, and he refocuses enough to remember his original question.

It makes him frown – what does it mean, that the speedforce doesn’t know?

“Why’re you here, then?” Barry sighs, pressing his fingers into the corners of his eyes. It’s not quite a headache that’s building behind his eyelids, but the pressure makes him feel like he’d like to sleep the day – the week, the year – away.

“Looked like you could use some company, Barry.”

Snart’s voice is teasing, much like it used to be whenever they had one of their run-ins, but it grows softer around Barry’s name, just like it did that one time Snart was actually in Joe’s living room, warning Barry about the Weather Wizard. Now that Barry thinks about it, that was the last time he saw the man, really saw him, without running back in time to cheat death or having the speedforce use his face. It makes Barry strangely, sadly nostalgic, wondering what could’ve been if Snart had agreed to help that time.

Barry can’t help but smile, just a little, even if it’s a bitter one, amusement drawn from the knowledge that from where he’s sitting, there’s nothing he can do.

Where Snart is sitting, there’s no one actually there: just an image of a man who used to be, a reminder of the many, many times Barry blundered forward without knowing what he was doing, and how much of an impact he would have even on men like Leonard Snart.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, even though he knows that his guilt cannot be assuaged by apologizing to a hallucination. “I didn’t want you-  _him_ \- to die. If I knew, I would’ve…”

But there’s little he would’ve done differently, he knows that now. He knows himself better than he had two, three, five months ago, and he’s always been quick to believe in people… he just never learned to realize when that faith could hurt instead of help.

“Don’t go sayin’ sorry now,” Snart drawls and stands up: for a moment, Barry thinks he’s leaving, but he just collects Barry’s empty mug. “No take backs on the speeches about the good in people, now that I’m actually a hero, got it?”

He carries the mugs – a reindeer and a carved pumpkin – back to the kitchen, and Barry watches him go, wondering if that is how Leonard Snart marched to meet his end, with that self-assured, almost cocky stride, a subtle roll to his hips, shoulders back and head held high.

And then,  _then_  it clicks that the hallucination with Snart’s face on said ‘I’.

Not ‘we’. Not like the speedforce did, back when it first used Snart’s name.

Barry’s heart slams against his ribs in a panicked jump. He’s out of the armchair before he can think twice, once more running on unreasonable hope that-

Snart looks up at him when Barry more falls than walks into the kitchen. He’s washing the mugs, the sleeves of his thermal shirt damp from the water, and he looks so incredibly domestic and so  _human_  that Barry’s heart clenches in his chest.

“Who are you?” he breathes out, almost afraid to get the words out because this right here might be the speedforce’s way of messing with him, a parade of the people he knows, all of them dropping minute hints that they’re real, only to laugh at him afterwards. Snart’s mouth quirks up in that smirk of his, and for a second Barry’s ready to bolt, wherever that front door might actually take him.

“Aren’t we past the introductions by now, Barry? I’m hurt.”

It could mean that he’s well-acquainted with the speedforce, but somehow, Barry doesn’t think that’s it. Just as he’s about to open his mouth and ask once again, even though he couldn’t trust Leonard Snart’s word anyway, lightning flashes past the kitchen window. Snart’s eyebrows draw together.

“Time to go,” he says quietly and wipes his hands on the dish towel.

“What- where-“

“No time to talk, kid. If either of us stands a chance of getting out of here, we gotta move.  _Now_.”

There’s a deafening noise from the living room and Barry glances just enough of it through the kitchen door to see the whole front wall of the house collapse in a whirlwind of lightning. His throat closes and he reaches for his speed, but Snart’s hand clamping around his wrist breaks his concentration.

“Don’t,” Snart says; there’s something about his touch, and about how pinched his expression is, that makes Barry feel like he’s real. “Your personal Wicked Witch will find us if you use the powers. We gotta run the old-fashioned way… up for it, kid?”

And Barry, out of his depth and confused to no end, follows the man who had once betrayed him out into the lightning storm.


	37. "That was a perfect example of how not to do things."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill from tumblr :)

Even with his regenerative powers, the muscles of Barry’s face are aching with how much he’s trying his damnedest to maintain an innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt expression.

It’s probably more of a spastic grimace by now, judging by the way Joe’s scowl seems to worsen whenever he shoots a glare Barry’s way. He’s pacing in a way that both Barry and Iris recognize as a prelude to a rant of epic proportions. When Joe detours to the kitchen, no doubt to grab a glass of liquid fortification for the imminent conversation, Barry dares to pull out his phone.

He wouldn’t if he didn’t have his speed, in all honesty.

 _that was a perfect example of how NOT TO DO THINGS omg_ , he texts, following the words with a set of unhappy emojis and wishing there was an emoji for ‘I can’t believe you actually went and did that’.

Barry can hear Joe coming back, so he doesn’t wait for the response. It wouldn’t help to see the myriad of cackling emojis Len is bound to send back, anyway.

Joe, a glass of brandy in hand, sits down on what Barry and Iris used to call ‘The Interrogation Chair’. Barry has a flashback to the time when he found Len sprawling in it, hot cocoa in hand and a smirk on his face, and that’s not helping either.

“Son,” Joe starts, “is there something you want to tell me?”

It’s that tone that means he better start talking, fast, and Barry knows there’s no getting around that… so he does.

…

“I hate you,” Barry announces to his dark apartment as soon as he sets foot inside. It’s dead quiet, but he has no doubt he’ll find Len gloating in his home: and sure enough, when he switches on the lights, Len’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa, reading National Geographic and smirking like a cat that got the cream.

Or in this case, the cat that outed his boyfriend to a parental figure without so much as batting an eye.

“Oh?” Len says, politely interested like he’s not well-aware of the shitstorm Barry just went through. It’s thanks to said shitstorm that Barry doesn’t really have the energy for (another) fight today; he crosses the room in a few long strides and collapses on the sofa, letting his head fall onto Len’s thigh.

“Two hours, Len. Two hours of my life I will never get back. And probably a decade off my lifespan, what with the added stress,” he sighs, rubbing his eyes. A hand is suddenly in his hair, smoothing the wind-blown strands and massaging his scalp gently. It should be illegal to be so damn comforting when Len was the one to cause this mess in the first place… but then, Len doesn’t much care for the law on the best of days, anyway.

“Poor Scarlet,” Len chuckles quietly somewhere above him. A rustle of pages tells Barry he’s putting away his National Geographic – and Barry does appreciate that, because it’s that special on sharks he got Len last week.

Not that the asshole had time to read it while planning today’s heist.

“Damn right poor me,” Barry nods, then pushes into Len’s fingers, which feel incredible in his hair. He recalls this afternoon, when Joe walked in on Len and Barry trading barbs and little flirtatious jokes… and Len’s response to a cop’s gun pointed at him was ‘oh come on, West, what’s a little foreplay fight between a superhero and his dearly beloved nemesis?’. 

In all fairness, Barry has to admit that if he hadn’t started spluttering and blushing furiously, Joe probably would not have put two and two together (so quickly). 

“I had to explain that no, you weren’t forcing or blackmailing me, yes, I was doing this of my own free will, although I couldn’t really explain what possessed me to agree, and then I had to suffer through a really awkward moment when Joe asked if it was serious and I couldn’t answer because it’s not like  _I_  know what  _this_  is.”

He only realizes he’s let his tired mouth run away from him when he notices that Len’s fingers have stilled against his scalp. Barry’s eyes fly open and he stares up at Len in mute horror for about two seconds – which feels like an eternity to a speedster – and then his cheeks burn as he tries to backtrack.  
  
“I don’t mean- it’s not like I’m demanding anything, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

He stammers so fast that he almost misses Len’s quiet voice interrupting him.

“Serious enough for me, Barry.”

It takes the wind right out of Barry’s sails, the steady, determined way in which Len says it, like he can’t imagine anything else, like he’s ready for this, whatever  _this_  ends up being, like he  _wants_  this crazy, ill-advised thing between them to work.

And Barry, heart stumbling on each beat, realizes that while they were avoiding talking about where they were headed, they’ve both come to the same conclusion – that wherever it is, they’ll do their best to go together.

“Me too,” he smiles, twisting to his side and nuzzling his cheek into the soft fabric of Len’s sweatpants. Well. Technically, they belong to Barry, but he’s found that they feel much better when experienced from this angle.

And that’s that, surprisingly easy as everything with Len has been so far, from jumping into bed to cooking dinner. Barry’s dozed off by the time Len speaks again:

“So what did you tell West?”

“That if he didn’t stop yelling at me, he wouldn’t be invited to the wedding.”

He falls asleep to the sound of Len’s quiet laughter.


	38. "I don't know if I should kiss you or slap you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short one for an anon prompt.

Len is not ungrateful for the rescue, but he can’t help the smirk that tugs at the corners of his mouth when the world returns to its ordinary speed around them and the fastest hero of Central City is still holding on to him. 

One might think the boy is not at all averse to the proximity, judging by the red-gloved hand currently resting over the curve of Len’s ass. 

“I don’t know if I should kiss you or slap you, my  _hero_ ,” Len drawls, eyes locking on the sensuous lips unconcealed by the ridiculous cowl. The skin peeking from under the red pleather flushes. But the hand, oh, the hand remains. 

“How about you stop robbing people for at least a week? As a ‘thank you’?” Scarlet sighs, but Len doesn’t miss how his hazel eyes dart to Len’s mouth.

Len licks his lips, slowly, suggestively, and watches with satisfaction as Barry swallows so hard that it’s obvious even through the suit’s collar. 

“How about I keep robbing people and you keep coming?” he wiggles an eyebrow. Barry groans - which could be a reaction to the not-so-subtle pun or to Len’s knee worming its way between his thighs. The hand on Len’s ass tightens, and then the world turns into a blur for about a second. Len loses his balance, but Barry doesn’t let him fall. It feels surprisingly secure in his nemesis’ arms, Len finds.

The speedster pushes his cowl back over his messed-up, sweat-damp hair (Len does his best not to lose focus by imagining what it would -  _will_ \- feel like to bury his hands in it).   
  
“If you steal my TV, I’m going to leave you in the middle of Nevada next time,” Barry warns gruffly, but he’s already pulling his gloves off and cupping Len’s face in his warm hands, leaning in to kiss the smirk from Len’s lips. Amusement and somewhat fond exasperation turn into heat, and Len holds that lithe body close. 

Oh, he’s going to steal something alright. Wouldn’t do to disappoint - but it can wait a while. 


	39. "You're supposed to talk me out of this" & "I don't want your pity, I want your absence."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for anon who wanted two prompts in one fic: "You're supposed to talk me out of this" & "I don't want your pity, I want your absence."
> 
> Established coldflash, mostly Snart siblings bonding and talking (and Lisa being the smarter one).

“Poor Lenny,” Lisa drawls, even as she smacks him over the head with her newest Chanel bag. Len’s pretty sure it’s no coincidence, but he’s in no place to contest her casual violence right now.

“I don’t want your pity, I want your absence,” he snaps and takes another swig of his beer before she yanks the bottle out of his grip, snorts when she reads the label, and returns it to his sorry self.

“Didn’t you get the memo that drowning your sorrows only works if you get actual alcohol involved?”

He ignores her, just like he’s trying to ignore most of his life right now. It’s probably not the most mature way of coping with shit, but at the moment, Len doesn’t care. All he wants is to wallow and scowl at the wall for the night, and then maybe go plan a heist. Something obnoxious and loud, something that would be a giant ‘fuck you’ in the face of a hero.  _The_  hero.

Which is stupid, because Len is the one in the wrong, but he panicked and ran and now there’s no way back. Technically, Barry could probably take him back in time to the point when Len hasn’t fucked up yet, but Barry would be right there with him, and hence lay the problem.

Lisa, unfortunately, doesn’t take the hint and keeps staring him down until Len scowls at her, without much heat, because he’s reserving all he’s got for the burning self-hatred at the moment.

“What?”

“You tell me,” she shrugs and puts her legs up onto the table, crossing her ankles and watching him like a hawk. “I haven’t seen you moping this badly for quite some time. I think it was… oh yes, the first time Barry told you it was a mistake.”

He winces, unable to hold back the hurt at the sound of the kid’s name, and Lisa grows serious, zoning in on his pain with scary precision. Feet off the table in a second, she leans forward, studying him like the answer’s written in his eyes. Maybe it is, the way he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the whole ordeal.

“Did he break up with you? Is that it? I’m going to-“

“-do nothing,” Len interrupts, before she can get explicit in her fantasies of bodily harm inflicted upon the man he shouldn’t, but does, love.

And therein lies the problem. Much as he likes Barry, they could never work long-term. Not with Barry’s family, not with Len’s, not with the diverging paths their lives have taken. Too bad Barry didn’t understand that fact, or dismissed it with his endless optimism.

Lisa’s still watching him, and Len’s beer is gone, sloshing warm and unpleasant in his mouth like it can’t quite wash away the taste of the harsh words he spoke. He wishes he could forget, get drunk for real and stop thinking about the whole mess for a few hours, but his father has taken that from him forty years ago and Len’s not ready to become an even more screwed-up version of Lewis, not even when he can’t think of any other way to cope.

“Lenny,” Lisa says, and he must look like shit for her to take that tone with him, soft and empathetic and careful, “what happened?”

There’s no use in putting it off or lying: Lisa has become friends with Iris during the whirlwind of Len’s relationship with Barry, and bad news sure travel fast.

“He proposed.”

“He  _what_?!”

Len winces at the memory of Barry’s bright eyes, his hopeful smile, the way his voice shook a little as he fumbled with the words. He picks at the label on his empty bottle, because destruction is apparently his motto for the day, and sighs.

“You heard me.”

“Sure I heard you, I just don’t get why you’re not somewhere celebra- you said no.”

Lisa sounds… shocked, and Len frowns. She was always quick to tell him that he should be careful, and that Barry was too young, too eager, too different from anything they’ve ever known, so it feels like betrayal that she’s not there for him right now, saying he did the right thing.

“You’re an idiot, Lenny. Why did you say no?! You’re obviously crazy about this guy, and much as it pains me to say, you’ve been good together, good  _for_  each other. Sure he’s a cop’s kid, and half a cop himself, and overall too much of a good guy if you ask me, but… the way you looked at him, Lenny, I haven’t seen you look that way at anyone, ever, and he’s been looking right back, so what’s the problem?”

Len pushes the bottle away, almost wishing it would crash over the side of the table and shatter, but of course it doesn’t, because he can’t do anything right today.

“You’re supposed to talk me out of this. In fact, you’ve been talking me out of this for more than a year.”

“And you always do the exact opposite of what I say, so don’t you dare blame it on me, chicken-shit.”

He whirls around to face her, anger rising in his chest like a tidal wave. “What did you just-“

“You heard me,” Lisa scoffs, not budging an inch under the weight of his glare. “You know what I think? You’re so scared of losing him, or hurting him, so you pushed him away now rather than later. Great job. Because that’s going to make you both feel so much better.”

Len’s knuckles ache with the urge to punch something, a wall, or some asshole’s face – too bad he chose their private warehouse for his moping, instead of a bar where he could pick a fight or two. It makes sense, what Lisa’s saying, but the thing is, those words would sound better in some fucking romantic movie where the problems magically disappear because of love.

“Wouldn’t work,” he shrugs, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension that’s been gripping his muscles for hours now. “He’s too much of a good guy, you said it. Sees something in me that’s not there, I can’t live up to that. Eventually he’s gonna be disappointed, Lise, and it’ll be too damn hard for him to walk away if there’s a ring on his finger. That’s the kind of guy he is. I want to be with him, but tonight… it changes things.”

“Have you told him that?”

Lisa’s question catches him off-balance and he blinks for a moment before the words actually make it to his brain in all their confusing glory.

“What?”

“Have you told him how you feel, Lenny? I mean, really told him. That you’re worried you’re not good enough for him – that you want to be with him, without the rings and all that jazz. Doesn’t matter if that’s true a year or a decade from now, and it doesn’t matter if it changes for him, either. If all you can really promise is right now, he should know. And you can’t decide for him if that’s enough or not. Much as I like to tease you about cradle-robbing, he’s a grown man. Talk to him, Lenny. And listen.”

Len’s knee-jerk reaction is to shake his head and tell her she’s crazy… but her words make a terrifying sort of sense in his mind all of a sudden, and he’s pushing away from the table before he can think himself out of it again. He can’t possibly screw things up any worse than they already are, and the thin sliver of hope that maybe, he could make things  _better_ , gives him the momentum to turn and walk away without a word, for the second time tonight.

Hopefully towards a brighter future.

….

Lisa rolls her eyes at her brother’s retreating back: at forty-four, Lenny should really learn to talk about his feelings without grimacing like his teeth are being pulled. But who better to teach him than a bright-eyed twenty-something with the innate charm of an overgrown puppy?

Yeah, Lisa can’t say she’s a fan… but she would gladly give her brother to a sasquatch if he made Lenny’s eyes light up like Barry does.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out to find a very angry text message from ‘TheHottestWest’.

_WHAT HAS UR BROTHER DONE IM AT BARRYS HES DEVASTATED_

Lisa smirks and fires off a quick reply, then reaches under the table for an unopened bottle.

_u should clear out lens on his way makeup sex to follow 4sure_

An angry emoji, followed by a disgusted one, arrives in the next second.

But since Lenny fails to come back home that night, Lisa believes that Iris took her advice, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from my [tumblr.](http://pheuthe.tumblr.com/)


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